Archaeolepis
Encyclopedia
Archaeolepis mane is the earliest known Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

n fossil. It dates from the Lower Jurassic (ca ) and according to Grimaldi & Engel (2005) a recent re-examination of the specimen has given additional support to its ordinal placement. The fossil consists of a pair of wings with scales that are characteristically similar to the wing venation pattern found in Trichoptera
Trichoptera
The caddisflies are an order, Trichoptera, of insects with approximately 12,000 described species. Also called sedge-flies or rail-flies, they are small moth-like insects having two pairs of hairy membranous wings...

 (caddisflies).

The fossil was found in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

in the United Kingdom.

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