ABSTRACT: The fossil record of insect extinction at the family level is characterized by two basic modes: background extinction, which represents an ambient level of taxa extirpation, and mass extinctions, which are occasional severe events in which taxa are eliminated significantly above background levels. The most significant mass extinction, at the end-Permian (Permian–Triassic; P-T), divides the history of insects into two major evolutionary faunas: an earlier Paleozoic Evolutionary Fauna of apterygotes, paleopterans, and basal clades of orthopteroids and hemipteroids; and a subsequent Modern Evolutionary Fauna of more derived clades of orthopteroids and hemipteroids and especially holometabolous insects. In addition to the P-T event, four other extinctions are documented by multiple types of data: Late Pennsylvanian, Late Jurassic, later