Dasyleptus

Dasyleptus is an extinct genus of wingless insects, and the only member of the family Dasyleptidae and order or suborder Monura. They resembled juveniles of their modern relatives and had a single lengthy filament projecting from the end of the abdomen. They also had a pair of leg-like cerci and some non-ambulatory abdominal appendages. The largest specimens reached 30 millimetres (1.2 in) or more, not counting the length of the filament. Dasyleptus species are mostly known only from the Late Carboniferous and Permian, but one species recorded from the Middle Triassic indicates that they survived the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Dasyleptus and Monura are now typically treated as members of the living order Archaeognatha, though this placement was questioned in a 2026 study, which found it to be a stem-group insect and the most primitive insect known.

Dasyleptus

Skye McDavid · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
DasyleptidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 67 million years on record.

The record covers at least 307.4 Mya to 239.48 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 309.8 Mya to 237 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 4 of 17 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 11 of 17 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 17 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrences311–309 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences309–306 Mya — about 1 occurrence306–304 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences304–301 Mya — about 1 occurrence301–299 Mya — about 1 occurrence299–296 Mya — about 1 occurrence296–294 Mya — about 1 occurrence294–291 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences291–289 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences289–286 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences286–283 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences283–281 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences276–273 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences273–271 Mya — about 2 occurrences271–268 Mya — about 2 occurrences268–266 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences256–253 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences253–251 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences246–243 Mya — about 1 occurrence241–238 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences238–236 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences307.4 Mya239.48 Mya311 Mya236 Mya

17 occurrences of Dasyleptus on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

17 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Mitina — 53.55°N, 87.25°EBursum — 34.84°N, 106.91°WCarbondale — 41.22°N, 88.21°WWellington — 38.64°N, 97.21°WCommentry Shales — 46.29°N, 2.75°ERöt — 50.13°N, 9.90°EMeride — 45.89°N, 8.95°EKayitou — 25.76°N, 104.37°E

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The named rock units Dasyleptus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Dasyleptus and its relatives

Permian

Where Dasyleptus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

427 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Dasyleptus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 17 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Dasyleptus

Credit
Skye McDavid
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itDasyleptidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brongniart 1885