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Phoenix666 writes:

World's oldest bug is fossil millipede from Scotland:

A 425-million-year-old millipede fossil from the Scottish island of Kerrera is the world's oldest "bug"—older than any known fossil of an insect, arachnid or other related creepy-crawly, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

The findings offer new evidence about the origin and evolution of bugs and plants, suggesting that they evolved much more rapidly than some scientists believe, going from lake-hugging communities to complex forest ecosystems in just 40 million years.

[...] The team found that the ancient millipede fossil is 425 million years old, or about 75 million years younger than the age other scientists have estimated the oldest millipede to be using a technique known as molecular clock dating, which is based on DNA's mutation rate. Other research using fossil dating found that the oldest fossil of a land-dwelling, stemmed plant (also from Scotland) is 425 million years old and 75 million years younger than molecular clock estimates.

Journal Reference:
M. E. Brookfield et al.Myriapod divergence times differ between molecular clock and fossil evidence: U/Pb zircon ages of the earliest fossil millipede-bearing sediments and their significance, Historical Biology (DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2020.1761351)

For all those legs it couldn't move fast enough to avoid turning to stone.

Original Submission