The Odonatoptera are a superorder (sometimes treated as an order) of ancient winged insects, placed in the probably

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

group Palaeoptera. The dragonflies and damselflies (which are placed in the subgroup Odonata) are the only living members of this group, which was far more diverse in the late

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

and contained gigantic species, including the griffinflies (colloquially called "giant dragonflies", although they were not dragonflies in the strict sense) of the order Meganisoptera (formerly Protodonata). This lineage dates back at least to the

Bashkirian The Bashkirian is in the International Commission on Stratigraphy geologic timescale the lowest stage (stratigraphy), stage or oldest age (geology), age of the Pennsylvanian (geology), Pennsylvanian. The Bashkirian age lasted from to Mega annu ...

, not quite 320 million years ago.

Systematics and taxonomy

There is little consensus about the relationships of the Odonatoptera. What is certain is that they are a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

of winged insects that stands outside the Neoptera. But various authors' analyses have yielded any one of three mutually exclusive phylogenies, or some variant thereof: The least problematic (in a taxonomic sense) view is that the Odonatoptera are the sister taxon of the Ephemeropteroidea (the mayfly lineage), and that the Palaeodictyopteroidea are either their sister taxon or a basal assemblage, all within a

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

Palaeoptera. But few recent analyses have supported this. Rather, it seems more and more likely that the Odonatoptera are the sister taxon of the Neoptera, making the "Palaeoptera" paraphyletic. The third view places the mayfly lineage as sister taxon of the neopterans, with the Odonatoptera as most primitive winged insects; it has seen little support in recent decades however.

Phylogeny

Based on the work of Günter Bechly, Nel et al. (2001) and Petrulevičius & Gutierrez (2016). In some treatments, the Odonata are expanded to include all these taxa with the exception of the "Erasipteridae", Geroptera and Protodonata; this group is treated as an unranked

Odonatoclada in the scheme used here. Where the Odonata are defined loosely, the term Odonatoidea is used instead of "Odonatoptera" (see e.g.). Cladogram of Odonatoptera including Odonata by Deregnaucourt et al. 2023.

Footnotes

References

* * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q3349326 Metapterygota Palaeoptera Insect superorders Extant Pennsylvanian first appearances