Steleopteridae is a family of extinct winged damselflies whose fossils have been found in modern Germany, Great Britain and Kazakhstan, and which lived at the end of the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

and the beginning of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

(166.1–130.0 million years ago). Steleopteron deichmuelleri

The family was described by the Austrian paleoentomologist

Anton Handlirsch Anton Handlirsch or Anton Peter Josef Handlirsch (20 January 1865, Vienna – 28 August 1935, Vienna) was an Austrian entomologist. He worked on many groups including Hemiptera, Hymenoptera and Neuroptera. His most significant work was in the stu ...

in 1906 on the basis of the fossilised exoskeleton '' Steleopteron deichmuelleri''. Hence, the type genus is ''

Steleopteron ''Steleopteon'' is a genus of extinct winged damselflies whose fossils have been found in modern Germany, and Great Britain, and which lived at the end of the Jurassic and the beginning of the Cretaceous (150.8 to 130 million years ago). The ...

''. Handlirsch assigned the family to the Epiproctophora. In 2001, the family was excluded from the Epiproctophora and transferred into a suborder of winged damselflies, Zygoptera. Until 2018, it had been believed that Steleopteridae became extinct in the

, but the discovery of '' Steleopteron cretacicus'' showed that the family may have become extinct as late as the

. They were fast flying

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

predators. According to the Fossilworks Database website, as of November 2019, the family includes 5 extinct species: *'' Auliella crucigera'' Pritykina, 1968 * '' Euparasteleopteron viohli'' Fleck et al., 2001 * '' Parasteleopteron guischardi'' Fleck et al., 2001 *'' Steleopteron cretacicus'' Zheng et al. 2018 *'' Steleopteron deichmuelleri'' Handlirsch, 1906

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q33134843 Prehistoric insect families