Is Strudiella a Devonian insect?

Abstract

The origin of winged insects (Pterygota), one of the planet’s most diverse lineages of organisms, is assumed to lie in the Devonian, but as an extremely sparse fossil record impedes our understanding of their early diversification, any well-preserved insect fossil from this time would be particularly valuable1. Garrouste et al.2 described an arthropod from Upper Devonian freshwater sediments from the Strud locality in Belgium (∼360 million years ago) as an insect, Strudiella devonica. However, based on a thorough re-investigation of the specimen, we conclude that this interpretation is untenable. Hence we believe that, like several other Devonian arthropod remains3,4,5,6,7, Strudiella is not an insect, and utmost diligence should be taken in interpreting poorly preserved Devonian arthropods.