Panorpida or Mecopterida is a proposed superorder of

Endopterygota Endopterygota (from Ancient Greek ''endon'' 'inner' + ''pterón'' 'wing' + New Latin ''-ota'' 'having'), also known as Holometabola, is a superorder of insects within the infraclass Neoptera that go through distinctive larval, pupal, and a ...

. The conjectured monophyly of the Panorpida is historically based on morphological evidence, namely the reduction or loss of the

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

and several internal characteristics, including a muscle connecting a pleuron and the first axillary sclerite at the base of the wing, various features of the larval

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. T ...

and

labium Labium is the Latin word for lip. In English, it may refer to: * Labia, a part of the female external genitalia * Labium (botany), a modified petal in certain monocot flowers, which attracts insects for pollination * Labium (arthropod mouthpart), ...

, and basal fusion of CuP and A1 veins in the hind wings. The monophyly of the Panorpida is supported by recent molecular data.

Antliophora

The Panorpid clade Antliophora contains one of the major phylogenetic puzzles among the Insecta. It is unclear as of 2020 whether the

Mecoptera Mecoptera (from the Greek: ''mecos'' = "long", ''ptera'' = "wings") is an order of insects in the superorder Endopterygota with about six hundred species in nine families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their lar ...

(scorpionflies and allies) form a single clade, or whether the

Siphonaptera Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, ar ...

(fleas) are inside that clade, so that the traditional "Mecoptera" is paraphyletic. However the earlier suggestion that the Siphonaptera are sister to the Boreidae (snow scorpionflies) is not supported; instead, there is the possibility that they are sister to another Mecopteran family, the

Nannochoristidae Nannochoristidae is a family of scorpionflies with many unusual traits. It is a tiny, relict family with a single extant genus, '' Nannochorista'', with eight species occurring in New Zealand, southeastern Australia, Tasmania, Argentina and Chil ...

of the Southern hemisphere. The two possible trees are shown below: (a) Mecoptera is paraphyletic, containing Siphonaptera: (b) Mecoptera is monophyletic, sister to Siphonaptera

References

* ; ; ; 2010
Early Mecopterida and the systematic position of the Microptysmatidae (Insecta: Endopterygota).''Annales de la Société Entomologique de France'' (n.s.)
46: 262-270. {{Taxonbar, from=Q16987281 Insect superorders