Kansas School Naturalist: Scorpionflies, Hangingflies, and other Mecoptera

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Volume 48, Number 1,
May 2002:
Scorpionflies, Hangingflies, and other Mecoptera

Text-only version

Cover photo: No. 39. Phidippus cardinalis [female]

ABOUT THIS ISSUE
- about KSN
- about the author

IN THIS ISSUE
- The Order Mecoptera
- Fossils
- Modern Species
- Family Panorpidae
- Family Bittacidae
- Family Meropeidae
- Family Panorpodidae
- Family Boreidae
- Key to the Families of North American Mecoptera (Adults)
- References

SLIDESHOW
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Scorpionflies, Hangingflies, and other Mecoptera
by Geroge W. Byers

SCORPIONFLIES, HANGINGFLIES, AND OTHER MECOPTERA
by George W. Byers

Although there are parts of North America where these insects are fairly common and may attract the attention of general collectors, they appear never to be common in Kansas and are not often captured by students collecting for biology classes, 4-H clubs, Boy Scouts, and the like. This is because there are fewer than a dozen species known to occur in Kansas, and most of these are limited to the eastern part of the state, where their habitats are fragmented and the insects are rarely encountered. One may reasonably ask, therefore, why an issue of the Kansas School Naturalist is devoted to such an obscure group of insects.

Cover: A pair of Panorpa mirabilis mating on forest undergrowth, a common habitat for panorpid scorpionflies.

THE ORDER MECOPTERA

How can members of this group of insects be recognized? How are Mecoptera different from somewhat similar insects in the orders Diptera (flies) or Neuroptera (lacewings)? Briefly, most Mecoptera have four membranous wings with several cross-veins. The wings often have spots or transverse bands of darker color. Hind wings are slightly shorter than the fore wings and have similar markings. A few species, but none in or near Kansas, are wingless or have very small wings (see Kansas School Naturalist, Vol. 38, No 2, p. 15; May 1992). Mecoptera have chewing mouthparts at the end of a beak-like downward prolongation of the head.

Scorpionflies (Family Panorpidae) and hangingflies (Family Bittacidae), together with some smaller families, make up the Order Mecoptera. This is now one of the minor orders of insects, with only about 550 species currently known worldwide. Why then are the Mecoptera of particular interest to entomologists and others concerned with animal evolution? On the basis of various characteristics, but mainly venation of the wings, Mecoptera are judged to be an ancient group of insects, ancestral to such modern and very much larger orders as Diptera (flies) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). Much of the fossil record of insects, from the Carboniferous period onward, is based on wing venation because wings are of a chemical composition that resists decomposition. In sedimentary rocks of the lower Permian geological period (about 270 million years ago), in which insects with complete metamorphosis (having four developmental stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult) first appear, the Mecoptera are well represented (see Kansas School Naturalist, Vol. 46, No 1, pp. 12–13; Feb. 2000). Fossil Mecoptera of various geological ages have been assigned to about 350 species in 87 genera and 34 families, diversity much greater than among living forms. Only 34 genera in nine families are recognized among mecopterans alive today. Living panorpids and bittacids may be thought of as survivors of an estimated 270 million years of mecopteran evolution.