page_title: Prehistoric Lepidoptera
section_title: Family Pterophoridae
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistoric Lepidoptera / Fossil Lepidoptera taxa / Superfamily Pterophoroidea / Family Pterophoridae
caption_attribution_description: English: The Merrifieldia oligocenicus (synonym Pterophorus oligocenicus) holotype specimen with direct lighting. Chattian, Oligocene; Niveau du gypse d'Aix Formation, Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle specimen MNHN.F.B47277
context_page_description: Prehistoric Lepidoptera are both butterflies and moths that lived before recorded history. The fossil record for Lepidoptera is lacking in comparison to other winged species, and tending not to be as common as some other insects in the habitats that are most conducive to fossilization, such as lakes and ponds, and their juvenile stage has only the head capsule as a hard part that might be preserved. The location and abundance of the most common moth species are indicative that mass migrations of moths occurred over the Palaeogene North Sea, which is why there is a serious lack of moth fossils. Yet there are fossils, some preserved in amber and some in very fine sediments. Leaf mines are also seen in fossil leaves, although the interpretation of them is tricky. Putative fossil stem group representatives of Amphiesmenoptera are known from the Triassic.
  Previously, the earliest known lepidopteran fossils were three wings of Archaeolepis mane, a primitive moth-like species from the Jurassic, about 190 million years ago, found in Dorset, UK, which show scales with parallel grooves under a scanning electron microscope and a characteristic wing venation pattern shared with Trichoptera.
context_section_description: Merrifieldia Tutt, 1905
  †Merrifieldia oligocenicus (Bigot, Nel & Nel, 1986) (synonym=†Pterophorus oligocenus)
caption: Merrifieldia oligocenicus
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