Protelytroptera is an extinct

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

of insects thought to be a

stem group In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. ...

from which the modern

Dermaptera Earwigs make up the insect order Dermaptera. With about 2,000 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders. Earwigs have characteristic cerci, a pair of forceps-like pincers on their abdomen, and membranous wings folde ...

evolved. These insects, which resemble modern

Blattodea Blattodea is an order (biology), order of insects that contains cockroaches and termites. Formerly, termites were considered a separate order, Isoptera, but genetics, genetic and molecular evidence suggests they evolved from within the cockroach ...

, or cockroaches, are known from the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

of North America, Europe and Australia, from the fossils of their shell-like forewings and the large, unequal anal fan. None of their fossils are known from the

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

, when the morphological changes from Protelytroptera to Dermaptera presumably took place.

References

Polyneoptera Extinct insect orders Earwigs Earwig taxonomy Permian insects {{permian-insect-stub