Aneuretopsychidae Temporal range:
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Burmopsyche bella in dorsal view | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Mecoptera |
Superfamily: | †Mesopsychoidea |
Family: | †Aneuretopsychidae Rasnitsyn and Kozlov 1990 |
Genera | |
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Aneuretopsychidae is an extinct family of scorpionflies known from the Mesozoic. Fossils are known from the Jurassic (Callovian-Oxfordian) to the early Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian). It is part of Mesopsychoidea, a group of scorpionflies with siphonate proboscis. They are suggested to have been nectarivores, feeding off the liquid pollination drops of and acting as pollinators for now extinct insect pollinated gymnosperms such as Bennettitales.[1]
Diagnostic characters include the "presence of pseudo-loop in the anal area of the forewing, and the well-developed jugum of the hind wing"[1] It has been proposed that the family are the sister group to fleas,[2] however a detailed analysis of the mouthparts of well preserved amber specimens found that they were homologous to those found in the Pseudopolycentropodidae and dissimilar to those of fleas.[1]