An Expanded View on the Morphological Diversity of Long-Nosed Antlion Larvae Further Supports a Decline of Silky Lacewings in the Past 100 Million Years.

ABSTRACT: Lacewings have been suggested to be a relict group. This means that the group of lacewings, Neuroptera, should have been more diverse in the past, which also applies to many ingroups of Neuroptera. Psychopsidae, the group of silky lacewings, is one of the ingroups of Neuroptera which is relatively species-poor in the modern fauna. Larvae of the group Psychopsidae, long-nosed antlions, can be easily identified as such in being larvae of antlion-like lacewings without teeth in their stylets (=compound structure of mandible and maxilla), with empodia (=attachment structures on legs) and with a prominent forward-protruding labrum. Therefore, such larvae can also be recognised in the fossil record. An earlier study demonstrated a decline in the morphological diversity of long-nosed antlion larv

SUBMITTER: Hassenbach C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9966087 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature