Chasmoptera

Life-forms

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Protostomia
Cladus: Ecdysozoa
Cladus: Panarthropoda
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Classis: Insecta
Cladus: Dicondylia
Subclassis: Pterygota
Cladus: Metapterygota
Infraclassis: Neoptera
Cladus: Eumetabola
Cladus: Endopterygota
Superordo: Neuropterida
Ordo: Neuroptera
Subordo: Myrmeleontiformia
Superfamilia: Nemopteroidea
Familia:Nemopteridae
Genus: Chasmoptera
Species: C. huttii – C. mathewsi – C. superba

Chasmoptera huttii

Chaemoptera is a genus in the Nemopteridae (the spoonwing family of insects). The genus, which consists of three species, is wholly confined to Western Australia.[1]

The genus was first described by William Forsell Kirby in 1900,[1][2] and the type species is Chasmoptera huttii.[1]

A key feature of Chasmoptera is the "elaborate extended hindwings, with apical dilations arranged in a “ribbon” or “spoon” shape".[3]

Description

Kirby describes the genus as follows (but only lists the one species, Chasmoptera huttii):

Antennas very thick; beak prominent: hind wings only one and a half times as long as the fore wings; fore wings hyaline, except a slightly marked pterostigma; hind wings wholly dark except at the extremity and on the median line in the middle of the principal lobe, which expands very broadly on each side, occupying the third quarter of the wing; at the .base it expands gradually, and at the extremity it is truncated, the angles, however, being rounded off; from the central line a number of bifid nervures diverge on each side. This is followed by a second smaller lobe on each side, and a broad terminal projection, white on the apical half.[2]

Later work uses both wing and genital morphology to distinguish both species and genera.[3]
Species

Chasmoptera huttii (Westwood, 1848)
Chasmoptera mathewsi Koch, 1967
Chasmoptera superba Tillyard, 1925

Further reading

L.E. Koch (1967). "The genus Chasmoptera (Neuroptera: Nemopteridae), with the description of a new species from Western Australia". Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London. Series B, Taxonomy. 36 (9–10): 137–146. doi:10.1111/J.1365-3113.1967.TB00551.X. ISSN 0375-0434. Wikidata Q99973181.

References

"Australian Faunal Directory: Chasmoptera". biodiversity.org.au. Archived from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
W.F. Kirby (November 1900). "LIX.—Notes on the Neuropterous family Nemopteridæ". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 6 (35): 456-464 [462]. doi:10.1080/00222930008678407. ISSN 0374-5481. Wikidata Q56097200.
Liesel Morgan (2021), Taxonomy and systematics of Chasmoptera (Neuroptera: Nemopteridae: Nemopterinae): Assessing the species status of Western Australia’s only spoon-wing lacewing genus (PDF), Wikidata Q109911037