Caddisflies (Trichoptera) are small, cosmopolitan insects closely related to the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). Most caddisflies construct protective cases during their larval development. Although the earliest recognisable caddisflies date back to the early Mesozoic (Early and Middle Triassic), being particularly numerous and diverse during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, the fir...

Fishflies (Corydalidae: Chauliodinae) are one of the main groups of the basal holometabolous insect order Megaloptera, with ca. 130 species distributed worldwide. A number of genera from the Southern Hemisphere show remarkably disjunctive distributions and are considered to be the austral remnants or "living fossils" of Gondwana. Hitherto, the evolutionary history of fishflies remains largely u...

Biogeographic analysis of Crocidiinae (Diptera, Bombyliidae): finding congruence among morphological, molecular, fossil and paleogeographical data. Biogeographic studies dealing with Bombyliidae are rare in the literature and no information is available on its origin and early diversification. In this study, we found evidence from molecular phylogeny and from fossil record supporting a Middle J...

BACKGOUND Saucrosmylids are characterized by the typically large body size, complicated venation and diverse wing markings, which were only discovered in Middle Jurassic of Daohugou, Ningcheng county, Inner Mongolia, China. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Saucrosmylinae Ren, 2003, originally included as a subfamily in the Osmylidae, was transferred and elevated to family rank based on the definitive synap...

Abelisaurids are a clade of large, bizarre predatory dinosaurs, most notable for their high, short skulls and extremely reduced forelimbs. They were common in Gondwana during the Cretaceous, but exceedingly rare in the Northern Hemisphere. The oldest definitive abelisaurids so far come from the late Early Cretaceous of South America and Africa, and the early evolutionary history of the clade is...

BACKGROUND Ichthyosauria is a diverse clade of marine amniotes that spanned most of the Mesozoic. Until recently, most authors interpreted the fossil record as showing that three major extinction events affected this group during its history: one during the latest Triassic, one at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary (JCB), and one (resulting in total extinction) at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary...