Only two specimens of spiders have been described from Jurassic strata, so the recovery of some 400 new specimens from rocks of middle Jurassic age from China signals a dramatic increase in information on fossil spiders of this period. Here, new spiders belonging to the superfamily Palpimanoidea sensii Forster & Platnick 1984, from the locality of Daohugou. Inner Mongolia, are described. Patanhaea nmralis n. gen., n. sp. is a true archaeid, represented by both an adult male and female. Smaranea metaxyostraca n. gen., n. sp., represented by an adult male and juveniles, is a palpimanoid similar to Palpimanidae and Huttoniidae, but is not placed in a modern family.
Three lepidopteran species, from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou beds (inner Mongolia, China), are described in a new family, Mesokristenseniidae, and new genus, Mesokristensenia, which could represent the sister group of the Micropterigidae. Mesokristensenia differs from all extant Lepidoptera, but one genus (Agathiphaga, Agathiphagidae), in retaining four median veins in the forewing, a plesiomorphy also present in many Trichoptera. Evidence for placing Mesokristensenia in the Lepidoptera includes four traits, notably a previously unrecorded autapomorphy of this insect order: beyond stem M1+2, vein M1 is bent and connected to cross‐vein r‐m (in both wing pairs). Among 24 characters taken into account to assess the systematic position of Mesokristensenia, 12 are considered informative for a cladistic analysis involving this fossil taxon and the four suborders recognized in present‐day Lepidoptera (Zeugloptera, Aglossata, Heterobathmiina, and Glossata).
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