Mazothairos
Extinct insect genus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mazothairos (from Mazo, derived from its location of Mazon Creek and θαιρός, thairos, meaning 'hinge' in Greek)[1] is an extinct genus of insect that lived during the Carboniferous period. It was a member of the order Palaeodictyoptera, and is only known from a single fossil composed of a segment of the tergum and some surrounding body parts. It is estimated to have had a wingspan of around 56 centimeters, making it one of the largest-known insects, similar in size to the largest members of the order Meganisoptera, such as Meganeura and Meganeuropsis.[1]
| Mazothairos Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
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| Speculative reconstruction of Mazothairos enormis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | †Palaeodictyoptera |
| Family: | †Homoiopteridae |
| Genus: | †Mazothairos Kukalová-Peck & Richardson, 1983 |
| Species: | †M. enormis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Mazothairos enormis Kukalová-Peck & Richardson, 1983 | |
As the largest representative of Palaeodictyoptera, it is believed to have had specialized sucking mouthparts, used to pierce plant tissues and drink their liquids, similarly to some of its relatives.[2] It is also sometimes assumed to have had a pair of winglets on the prothorax in front of its first pair of wings (which give its order the epithet of "six-winged insects"), but the very fragmentary nature of its holotype specimen makes their presence difficult to verify.[3][4][5][6][7]
Mazothairos lived in the Mazon Creek fossil beds in modern-day Illinois, a lagerstätte formed approximately 309 million years ago during the Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period, which is thought to have been a part of a river delta system and have had a tropical climate.[1]
