''Englathauma'' is an extinct genus of

scorpionfly Mecoptera (from the Greek language, Greek: ''mecos'' = "long", ''ptera'' = "wings") is an Order (biology), order of insects in the superorder Holometabola with about six hundred species in nine Family (biology), families worldwide. Mecopterans a ...

. It is the only member of the family Englathaumatidae. It is known from two species, ''E. crabbi'', and ''E. mellisha.'' Both species are known from the

Weald Clay Weald Clay or the Weald Clay Formation is a Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rock unit underlying areas of South East England, between the North and South Downs, in an area called the Weald Basin. It is the uppermost unit of the Wealden Group of ...

of the United Kingdom, dating to the

Barremian The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale (or a chronostratigraphic stage) between 125.77 Ma (million years ago) and 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma (Historically, this stage was placed at 129.4 million to approximately 125 million years ago) It is a ...

stage of the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

. The family had been a ''

nomen nudum In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published ...

'' since the death of the lead author of the paper Victor G. Novokshonov, in 2003, until the paper was published in 2016. The well

sclerotized Sclerosis (also sclerosus in the Latin names of a few disorders) is a hardening of tissue and other anatomical features. It may refer to: * Sclerosis (medicine), a hardening of tissue * in zoology, a process which forms sclerites, a hardened exo ...

wings suggest that they were used as cover to protect the body rather than for flight, similar to the living ''

Notiothauma ''Notiothauma'' is the sole living genus in the scorpionfly family Eomeropidae. The genus is monotypic with a lone species ''Notiothauma reedi'' which is native to the Valdivian temperate rain forests of central Chile, especially the forests w ...

.''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q104858540 Prehistoric insect genera

† A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages). It is one of the mo ...