Dasyleptus

Dasyleptus
Temporal range: Late Carboniferous–Middle Triassic
Dasyleptus sp. fossil
Life reconstruction of D. brongniarti
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Archaeognatha
Suborder: †Monura
Sharov, 1957
Family: †Dasyleptidae
Sharov, 1957
Genus: †Dasyleptus
Brongniart, 1885
Species

See text

Synonyms

Lepidodasypus Durden, 1978

Underside of D. triassicus (right) with telson truncated, compared to early bristletail Gigamachilis (left). Centre shows smaller full body ventral view of D. triassicus

Dasyleptus is an extinct genus of wingless insects, and the only member of the family Dasyleptidae and order or suborder Monura. They resembled juveniles of their modern relatives and had a single lengthy filament projecting from the end of the abdomen. They also had a pair of leg-like cerci and some non-ambulatory abdominal appendages. The largest specimens reached 30 millimetres (1.2 in) or more, not counting the length of the filament. Dasyleptus species are mostly known only from the Late Carboniferous and Permian, but one species recorded from the Middle Triassic indicates that they survived the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Dasyleptus and Monura are now typically treated as members of the living order Archaeognatha, though this placement was questioned in a 2026 study, which found it to be a stem-group insect and the most primitive insect known.

Taxonomy

The genus includes the following species:

Phylogeny

Position of Dasyleptus after Tihelka et al. 2026, placing it outside of the Archaeognatha and crown insects as a whole.

Labiocarida

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Zhang, Weiting; Li, Hu; Shih, Chungkun; Zhang, Aibing; Ren, Dong (August 2018). "Phylogenetic analyses with four new Cretaceous bristletails reveal inter-relationships of Archaeognatha and Gondwana origin of Meinertellidae". Cladistics. 34 (4): 384–406. doi:10.1111/cla.12212. PMID 34649368. S2CID 90962396.
  2. ↑ Hoell, H.V.; Doyen, J.T. & Purcell, A.H. (1998). Introduction to Insect Biology and Diversity (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 321. ISBN 0-19-510033-6.
  3. ↑ Prokop, Jakub; Nel, André; Engel, Michael S. (2023). "Diversity, Form, and Postembryonic Development of Paleozoic Insects". Annual Review of Entomology. 68 (1): 401–429. doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-120220-022637.
  4. 1 2 Bechly, G.; Stockar, R. (2011). "The first Mesozoic record of the extinct apterygote insect genus Dasyleptus (Insecta: Archaeognatha: Monura: Dasyleptidae) from the Triassic of Monte San Giorgio (Switzerland)" (PDF). Palaeodiversity. 4: 23–37.
  5. ↑ "Suborder †Monura Sharov 1957". The Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  6. 1 2 Tihelka, Erik; Vásquez, Carlos; Engel, Michael S.; Schram, Frederick R.; Lozano-Fernandez, Jesus; Cai, Chenyang (2026-08-26). "Amphibious stem-insect sheds light on colonization of land". Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10961-2. ISSN 0028-0836.
  7. ↑ Gui-Chun Liu; Hua Zhang; Chen-Yang Cai; Ai-Hua Yuan; Yu-Qing Zheng; Di-Ying Huang (2019). "The bristletail genus Dasyleptus (Insecta: Archaeognatha: Dasyleptidae) from the Upper Permian-Lower Triassic Kayitou Formation of SouthWestern China". Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology. 33 (8): 1292–1296. doi:10.1080/08912963.2019.1692342. S2CID 213642030.