Palaeodictyopterida

The Paleodictyopterida or Palaeodictyopteroidea were an extinct group of insects that lived during a time long ago, called the Carboniferous period, starting from the Serpukhovian stage and continuing until the Late Permian. These insects had special mouthparts with five thin, needle-like parts, which made them different from other insects.

They were very important because they were among the first insects to live on land and eat plants. In fact, they were the first big group of insects that mainly fed on plants. This group was huge and included about half of all the insects known from that ancient time.

The young versions, or nymphs, of these insects had small wings that could move and seem to have been able to flap their wings in a simple way, which might have helped them move around. This made the Paleodictyopterida a large and diverse group of insects in the ancient world.

Phylogeny

An analysis by Sroka et al. in 2015 created a special family tree to show how these ancient insects are related. You can see the tree they made here.