Palaeontinoidea

Palaeontinoidea is an extinct superfamily of cicadomorph hemipteran insects. This superfamily contains three families.

Description
Palaeontinoids were comparatively large, cicada-like insects that existed from the Upper Permian to the Middle Cretaceous (around 260.4 to 112.0 million years ago).

Subdivisions
The three families classified under Palaeontinoidea, along with their age range and collection sites, are the following:


 * Mesogereonidae Tillyard, 1921 
 * Upper Triassic; Australia and South Africa. Contains two monophyletic genera.


 * Dunstaniidae Tillyard, 1916 
 * Upper Permian to Lower Jurassic; South Africa, Australia, France, Central Asia, and China.


 * Palaeontinidae Handlirsch, 1906 
 * Upper Triassic to Middle Cretaceous; Brazil, China, Russia, Germany, the Transbaikal region, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Contains around 30 to 40 genera and about a hundred species.