Lias Synonyms

The Permian may be represented, but the Trias is absent, and in general the older Palaeozoic rocks are overlaid directly by the Rhaetic and Lias.

It is, however, not impossible that the metamorphic series includes also some of the Lias.

Another well-known bed, formerly known as the "Bristol" or "Lias" Bone Bed, exists in the form of several thin layers of micaceous sandstone, with the remains of fish and saurians, which occur in the Rhaetic Black Paper Shales that lie above the Keuper marls in the south-west of England.

To the Lias also can be traced back the Neuroptera, the Trichoptera, the orthorrhaphous Diptera and, according to the determination of certain obscure fossils, also the Hymenoptera (ants).

From the evidence of fossils it seems that the higher sub-order - Apocrita - can be traced back to the Lias, so that we believe the Hymenoptera to be more ancient than the Diptera, and far more ancient than the Lepidoptera.