Evolution of the Insects
CY501-C11[407-467].qxd 3/2/05 12:56 PM Page 407 quark11 Quark11:Desktop Folder:CY501-Grimaldi:Quark_files: But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose to Know the mind that stirs Between the wings of Bees and building wasps. –George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy 11HHymenoptera:ymenoptera: Ants, Bees, and Ants,Other Wasps Bees, and The order Hymenoptera comprises one of the four “hyperdi- various times between the Late Permian and Early Triassic. verse” insectO lineages;ther the others – Diptera, Lepidoptera, Wasps and, Thus, unlike some of the basal holometabolan orders, the of course, Coleoptera – are also holometabolous. Among Hymenoptera have a relatively recent origin, first appearing holometabolans, Hymenoptera is perhaps the most difficult in the Late Triassic. Since the Triassic, the Hymenoptera have to place in a phylogenetic framework, excepting the enig- truly come into their own, having radiated extensively in the matic twisted-wings, order Strepsiptera. Hymenoptera are Jurassic, again in the Cretaceous, and again (within certain morphologically isolated among orders of Holometabola, family-level lineages) during the Tertiary. The hymenopteran consisting of a complex mixture of primitive traits and bauplan, in both structure and function, has been tremen- numerous autapomorphies, leaving little evidence to which dously successful. group they are most closely related. Present evidence indi- While the beetles today boast the largest number of cates that the Holometabola can be organized into two major species among all orders, Hymenoptera may eventually rival lineages: the Coleoptera ϩ Neuropterida and the Panorpida. or even surpass the diversity of coleopterans (Kristensen, It is to the Panorpida that the Hymenoptera appear to be 1999a; Grissell, 1999).
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