Meet the butterflies from 200 million years ago
Newly discovered fossils show that moths and butterflies have been on the planet for at least 200 million years. Scientists found fossilised butterfly scales the size of a speck of dust inside ancient rock from Germany. The find pushes back the date for the origins of the Lepidoptera, one of the most prized and studied insect groups. Researchers say they can learn more about the conservation of butterflies and moths by studying their early evolution.
They used acid to dissolve ancient rocks, leaving behind small fragments, including "perfectly preserved" scales that covered the wings of early moths and butterflies. "We found the microscopic remains of these organisms in the form of these scales," said Dr Bas van de Schootbrugge from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Intriguingly, they show that some of the moths and butterflies belonged to a group still alive today that have long straw-like tongues for sucking up nectar.
Also at NPR.
A Triassic-Jurassic window into the evolution of Lepidoptera (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1701568) (DX)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @07:36AM
It's the saintly thing of the United States of America, that clones, united, turned invisible to their methodical ways. Sure, but on the other hand, what the fuck do you know that you haven't already read!? I incubated it in my mouth!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:40PM (1 child)
I pity the interns/grad students whose job it was to dissolve rocks and view what's left, microscopically, in hopes of finding something. How many died from sheer boredom?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:59PM
Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:49AM
What not the shocking thing about the discovery, according to the fine Article which we do not read, that the insects seem to have evolved before the flowering plants on which they were presumed to feed? For one thing, $5 foot-longs were almost 200 Millions of years in the future, and cheap employers probably would not have sold them to bugs, any way, which would result in a complete collapse of the Capitalism and the indefinite extension of the Jurassic, causing reptiles to remain the dominant species on earth, and it being dinosaurs that iPhones were sold to.