Fig. 163.—Titanophasma fayoli. Carboniferous formation at Commentry. × ⅕. (From Zittel.)
Fig. 164.—Titanophasma fayoli (restoration). × ⅒.
Some Insects said to belong to the genera Phasma and Bacteria have been found in amber. A single Insect-fossil found in the Tertiary strata in North America has recently been referred by Scudder to the family, and even to a genus still existing in the New World—Agathemera; the fragment is, however, so defective, and the characteristic points of the Phasmidae are so little evident in it, that not much reliance can be placed on the determination. No Phasmid has been unearthed from Mesozoic strata, so that, with the exception of the fragment just mentioned, nothing that evidently belongs to the Phasmidae has been discovered older than the remains preserved in amber. In the Carboniferous layers of the Palaeozoic epoch there are found remains of gigantic Insects that may possibly be connected with our living Phasmidae. These fossils have been treated by Brongniart and Scudder as forming a distinct family called Protophasmidae. The first of these authors says[[203]] that our Phasmidae were represented in the Carboniferous epoch by analogous types differing in the nature of the organs of flight: these ancient Insects were of larger size than their descendants, being 25 to 50 centimetres long, and as much as 70 in spread of wing. To this group are referred, on somewhat too inferential grounds, the fossil wings found in the Carboniferous layers, and called by Goldenberg Dictyoneura.
We reproduce from Zittel's handbook a figure (Fig. 162) of one of these gigantic Insects, and add an attempt at a restoration of the same after the fashion of Scudder (Fig. 163). From these figures it will be seen that the relation to our existing Phasmidae must at best have been very remote.[[204]] It will be noted that the larger of the two figures is on a ⅕ scale.
The classification of Phasmidae was left in a very involved state by Stål, but has recently been brought into a more satisfactory condition by Brunner von Wattenwyl. We give a translation of his table of the tribal characters:—
1. Tibiae beneath carinate to the apex, without an apical area.
2. Antennae much longer than the front femora, many jointed, the joints being above 30 in number and only distinct at the base and towards the apex.[[205]]
3. Median [true first abdominal] segment much shorter than the metanotum.[[206]] The species all apterous.
4. The anal segment of the males roof-like, more or less bilobate. The female has a supra-anal lamina. The species inhabit the Old World. Tribe 1. Lonchodides (Fig. 148, Lonchodes nematodes.)