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Toarciconiopteryx dipterosimilis gen. et sp. nov. is described from the Lower Toarcian of Grimmen (Western Pomerania, Germany) based on a hind wing. This enigmatic wing superficially resembles a dipteran forewing, but analysis in detail establishes that it belongs to the Neuroptera. We assign it to the Coniopterygidae with great confidence by its great concordance with the hind wings of that family, but a small possibility remains that it might belong to the Dipteromantispidae, although the very derived haltere-like hind wings of all its known members are entirely unlike it. We, therefore, consider it to be the oldest record of Coniopterygidae. We create the new subfamily Toarciconiopteryginae subfam. nov. for it, which is distinguished from other Coniopterygidae by its hind wings possessing two branches of RP and a proximal forking of M. These conditions are also known in some Sialidae (Megaloptera), supporting the hypothesis that Coniopterygidae is the sister group of all other Neuroptera, as Megaloptera is considered by most authors to be sister to Neuroptera. New interpretations of some aspects of the Coniopterygidae venation are proposed.
Thyreophora is a clade of globally distributed herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs. The earliest forms are known from the Early Jurassic, and their latest surviving representatives witnessed the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Throughout their evolutionary history, these ‘shield bearers’ became lumbering quadrupeds, evolved a wide array of bony armor, plates and spikes, as well as sweeping tail weapons in the form of tail clubs and thagomizers. An isolated new thyreophoran osteoderm from a Lower Jurassic Konservatlagerstätte near Grimmen is described and, with the aid of micro-CT data, compared to an osteoderm of the early diverging thyreophoran Emausaurus ernsti from a different stratigraphic horizon at the same locality.