MESOSMYLININAE Bode, 1953

Winterton, Shaun L., Martins, Caleb Califre, Makarkin, Vladimir, Ardila-Camacho, Adrian & Wang, Yongjie, 2019, Lance lacewings of the world (Neuroptera: Archeosmylidae, Osmylidae, Saucrosmylidae): review of living and fossil genera, Zootaxa 4581 (1), pp. 1-99 : 33-34

MESOSMYLININAE Bode, 1953

Type genus. Mesosmylina Bode, 1953: 247 .

Diagnosis. Forewing with trichosors present along most of wing margin (where known); wing ovoid, relatively small; costal area uniformly narrow to broad basally; relatively few medial and cubital branches that are usually irregularly branched to few pectinate and not palisade-like in arrangement along the wing margin; single sc-r crossvein basally, rarely more; FW CuP with few branches (not elongate pectinately branched); HW unknown.

Comments. Members of this Jurassic subfamily display a generalised forewing with MA-MP fork near the base of the wing. This is an apparent plesiomorphic feature for Osmylidae as more distal forking of the forewing medial vein is found in the middle of the wing in some Protosmylinae and in the distal half of the wing in Stenosmylinae . The non-palisade–like arrangement of pectinately branched veins along posterior margin of wing (especially MA and MP) is characteristic; this area is also smaller in area than in other subfamilies. The definition of Mesosmylininae is unclear at this stage, especially relative to Protosmylinae and Spilosmylinae . The shape, branching pattern and relative areas of the medial and cubital veins in both wings appear important in defining Mesosmylininae ; this in turn may require some reconsideration of the membership of the subfamily. In particular the forewing CuP has only a few branches in Mesosmylininae , while in Protosmylinae and Spilosmylinae CuP is elongate and pectinately branched. Larvae are unknown for this subfamily.

Genera included. Mesosmylina Bode , Sogjuta Martynova.