Palaeontinoidea

Description

Palaeontinoids were comparatively large, cicada-like insects that existed from the Upper Permian to the Middle Cretaceous (around 260.4 to 112.0 million years ago).

Subdivisions

The three families classified under Palaeontinoidea, along with their age range and collection sites, are the following:

Mesogereonidae Tillyard, 1921

Upper Triassic; Australia and South Africa. Contains two monophyletic genera.

Dunstaniidae Tillyard, 1916

Upper Permian to Lower Jurassic; South Africa, Australia, France, Central Asia, and China.

Palaeontinidae Handlirsch, 1906

Upper Triassic to Middle Cretaceous; Brazil, China, Russia, Germany, the Transbaikal region, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Contains around 30 to 40 genera and about a hundred species.