A Broadened Perspective Relevant data for examining insect extinction come in many forms: geochronologic ranges of taxa based on body fossils, the phylogenetic history of extinct and extant lineages from morphologic and molecular data, patterns of insect herbivore-mediated plant damage on fossil leaves at crucial intervals, and the timing of the origin of modern plant–insect associations. Other kinds of data and approaches probably are waiting to be applied or discovered. This diversity of data is dedicated to the examination of a single phenonmenon—namely insect extinction—and requires a plurality of methodologies, depending on the time span and areal representation investigated and questions asked. Of these four approaches, the taxic approach is the most empirical and robust. It has encompassed the greatest number of analyzed units—more than 1000 fossil insect families distributed throughout the 415-m.y. insect fossil record among several independent studies. The possibility now exists for refinements at the generic and species level, although the major trends of insect diversity, origination, and extinction probably will remain the same. For the taxic approach, it is not important that analyzed taxa be natural lineages because the fundamental premise is demographic evaluation of cohorts of species spanning geologic time. A side benefit of this approach is that data frequently are analyzed in terms of origination and extinction rates, typically at a global scale, but also by ecological guild, biogeographical region, or other units of interest. These units are relevant for testing evolutionary or paleoenvironmentally based hypotheses that invoke significant changes in taxa through geologic time