| By Xavier
Martínez Delclòs
Prior
to this issue, Meganeura was published as hard copy of which four
numbers have appeared since autumn, 1997.
The name
of the newsletter is based on the largest insect that ever lived: Meganeura
monyi, found in the Stephanian Coal Measures of Commentry (France)
in the 1880s. It lived during the Carboniferous Period, 300 million
years ago, and was described by the French palaeontomologist Brongniart
in 1885. Today, the holotype of this species is housed in the Muséum
National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris.
At the end of the 1996, the Executive
Council of the European
Science Foundation (ESF) based in Strasbourg, approved the Fossil
Insects Network for a three-year period. The Chairman of the
Coordination Committee of this Network is Prof. Jean-Claude Gall of the
Université Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg (France).
One idea which the Committee proposed
during the first meeting with the ESF, in December 1996, was the establishment
of a palaeoentomological newsletter which would inform and promote all
news, papers, congresses, meetings, opinions, etc... about fossil insects
around the world. Financially supported by the ESF, the first number of
Meganeura was published and distributed in
autumn 1997. The four numbers published were edited by Dr. Xavier Martínez-Delclòs
of the University of Barcelona
(Spain), and made possible by a good response from colleagues.
In March 2000, the ESF “Fossil
Insect” Network is finishing, although at the Coordination Committee meeting
in 1998 in Goettingen (Germany) the future of Meganeura was anticipated
as an electronic publication. The ESF financial support finishes
with the Network and the construction of the Homepage of Meganeura
is financially supported by the ESF which is gratefully acknowledged: it
will allow the continuation of this newsletter.
Meganeura begins a new
period in the new millennium with two editors: Dr. GünterBechly
from Stuttgart (Germany) and Dr. Xavier Martínez-Delclòs.
The Editorial Board of Meganeura on Internet is completed with Dr.
Ed Jarzembowski from Maidstone (UK).
We intend that Meganeura
will be updated biannually and will be a newsletter that keeps people informed
of the latest news and publications in the all fields of fossil insects.
There are a lot of web sites about fossils in amber and in sedimentary
rocks, and a few on trace fossils. Meganeura wishes to include
all these fields (Ichnology, Archaeology, Amber, Site Protection, Congresses,
Projects, etc..) in only one electronic publication, clearly with the collaboration
of all people who work, live with or are mad about fossil insects.
If
you are concerned for the future of palaeoentomology, you can contribute
via Meganeura.
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