''Permotipula'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of protodipteran

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

which contains a single species ''Permotipula patricia''. The only specimen of ''Permotipula'' was found in

Late Permian Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...

strata of the Newcastle Coal MeasuresJell, Peter A. (2004
"The fossil insects of Australia"
''Memoirs of the Queensland Museum'' 50(1): pp. 1–124, page 2 between the towns of Belmont and

Warners Bay Warners Bay is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, and is located from Newcastle's central business district on the eastern side of Lake Macquarie. It is often regarded as a part of the Greater Newcastle distri ...

on the eastern side of

Lake Macquarie The City of Lake Macquarie is a local government area (LGA) in the Hunter Region in New South Wales, Australia. It was proclaimed a city on 7 September 1984. It is adjacent to the city of Newcastle and is part of the Greater Newcastle area. The ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and named by Robert J. Tillyard in 1929 in honour of his wife Patricia Tillyard. The specimen consisting of a single well preserved wing, was considered lost after the death of Tillyard in 1937. The loss of the specimen and the mention by Tillyard of a second insect fossil from the same site, later described as '' Robinjohnia tillyardi'' resulted in much confusion regarding the taxonomic affiliations of ''P. patricia''. ''Robinjohnia'', a four winged insect which is now placed in the order

Mecoptera 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 ...

. The ''P. patricia'' type specimen was found in the Tillyard collection which is housed at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

and reexamined by R. Willmann in a 1989 paper. A second species, '' P. borealis'' was named by O.M. Martynova in 1961 from a small wing specimen found in the Kuznetsk Basin,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. This species was moved, however, in 1989 by R. Willmann to the monotypic genus '' Permila'' and is now considered a probable early mecopteran.

References

Monotypic prehistoric insect genera Permian insects Fossil taxa described in 1929 Prehistoric arthropods of Oceania Taxa named by Robert John Tillyard Protodiptera {{permian-insect-stub