This is Mazon Monday post #132. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Reconstruction of Homaloneura sp.
Homaloneura dabasinskasi was described by F. M. Carpenter in 1964. The paper "Studies on North American Carboniferous Insects. 3. Spilapterid From the Vicinity of Mazon Creek, Illinois (Palaeodictyoptera)" appeared in the Entomology Journal Psyche. Frank M. Carpenter was an absolute giant in the field of both entomology and paleoentomology (insects). He wrote Chapter 14A "Insecta" in the "Richardson's Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek" not long before he died in 1994 at age 91. There have been many species named for him including hanging fly Bittacus carpenteri Cheng, 1957, the fossil parasitic wasp Carpenteriana tumida Yoshimoto, 1975, the fossil snakefly Fibla carpenteri Engel, 1995, the fossil ant Protrechina carpenteri Wilson, 1985, and the caddisfly Rhyacophila carpenteri Milne, 1936.
F.M. Carpenter
The type specimen of H. dabasinskasi was discovered by ESCONI member Walter Dabasinskas in 1960. He found it at the Greer Earthmoving and Mechanical School, Will County, Illinois, which was the site of Peabody Coal's Pit 1. That locality is now covered by the Cinder Ridge Golf Course along I-55 near Diamond, IL. Walter and his wife Suzanne were prolific Mazon Creek collectors. They have five species named for them, including three insects and two sharks! Suzanne is the namesake for Neofouquea suzanneae. An animal which was also described by F.M. Carpenter in 1967 in "Studies on North American Carboniferous Insects. 5. Palaeodictyoptera and Megasecoptera From Illinois and Tennessee, With a Discussion of the Order Sypharopteroidea". That paper also describes Eubrodia dabasinskasi.
The type specimen, which is in the collection of Walter Dabasinskas, Cicero, Illinois, consists of basal portions of two wings. The main veins and the cross veins are well preserved and the maculations are clear. The species is named for Suzanne Dabasinskas, in recognition of the persistence and patience which she, as well as her husband, Walter Dabasinskas, have shown in their collecting of the Mazon Creek insects. The specimen of N. suzanneue was collected between Braidwood and Coal City Illinois (Will Co.). Since no satisfactory figure of Fouquea Zacroixi Brongniart (the type species of the genus) has previously been published, I include here a drawing of the venational pattern of the type based upon study of the fossil at the Institut de Palbontologie in Paris. A comparison of the venation of Zacroixi with that of N. suzanneae indicates that the type specimen of the latter consists of the basal half of the wing, not quite as far distally as the first branch of the radial sector or of the fork of MA. The greater width of the wing of the specimen of suzanneae and the curvature of CuA suggest that the specimen is part of a hind wing, not a fore wing; however, since no complete specimen of the family Fouqueidae has been found, we do not have certain knowledge of the difference between the front and the hind wings.
- Dabascanthus inskasi, Walter Dabasinskas, a shark
- Eubrodia dabasinskasi, Walter Dabasinskas, an insect
- Homaloneura dabasinskasi, Walter Dabasinskas, an insect
- Neofouquea suzanneae, Suzanne Dabasinskas, an insect
- Similihariotta dabasinskasi, Walter Dabasinskas, a shark
From the September 1965 edition of the ESCONI newsletter
Homaloneura dabasinskasi
The kind of immortality rockhounds dream of has come to Walter Dabasinskas, member of the Chicago Rocks and Minerals Society and the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois. A new fossil of the family Spilapteridae, genus Homaloneura, has been named for him. F.M. Carpenter, professor of entomology, Harvard University writes as follows in the entomological journal Psyche Vol.71, No.3:
Holotype: collected by Mr. Walter Dabasinskas in June 1960 in an ironstone nodule, found at the Greer Earthmoving and Mechanical School, Will County, Illinois, 4 miles north of Braidwood. The type is contained in Mr. Dabasinskas collection and the species is named after him. The fossil is the most spectacularly preserved fossil insect which I have ever seen in a nodule from the Mazon Creek region and it is indeed one of the striking Carboniferous insects known to me. The fore wing is posterior in position to the hind wing and the apex of the fore wing rests near the base of the hind wing. That these two wings were derived from one side of the same specimen of an insect seems almost certain. The subcosta is concave in one wing and convex in the other; presumably, the wings broke away from the body as the insect rested in water and one of the wings turned over as well as rotating through 180 degrees before coming to rest in the mud. The counterpart of this half of the specimen has the apex of the fore wing and basal region of the hind wing completely preserved. "I am deeply indebted to Mr. Dabasinskas for loaning me the fossil for study and for permitting me to prepare the fossil by removing the rock matrix which covered the wing. I am also grateful to Dr. Eugene Richardson for calling my attention to the existence of this fossil in Mr. Dabasinskas' collection".
Specimen - Holotype from the paper in Psyche in 1964
Homaloneura dabasinskasi, n.sp. Photograph of holotype (original) x2. The fore wing is the lower of the two wings.
