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Oldest Fossilised Winged Insect Yet Discovered

Posted by Hemos on from the from-the-wayback-machine dept.

tr0llb4rt0 writes "The Scientific American reports on an article in Nature (paid subscription required for full text) on how the fossilised mouth parts of an insect discovered in Scotland in 1928 has turned out to be the oldest winged insect yet discovered, pushing back the age of the earliest appearance of winged insects nearly 80 million years. Previos fossils of winged insects have dated to around 330 million years and scientist believe this new discovery lived between 408 and 438 million years ago. "

24 comments

  1. Oldest bug found. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, it was infesting someone's Windows 3.11 system.

    1. Re:Oldest bug found. by man_ls · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I thought it got jammed in a relay :(

    2. Re:Oldest bug found. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I run Windows 3.11 you insensitive clod!

  2. Finally proof.. by Metex · · Score: 2, Funny

    that when I was young our stone tablet punchcards had bugs and man were they huge

    --
    Never could figure out why my girl liked my bitch tits, then I found out she was a lesbian.
  3. Mouth = wings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...fossilised mouth parts of an insect discovered in Scotland in 1928 has turned out to be the oldest winged insect yet.

    It had wings on its mouth, did it? How can you really tell without, say, a piece of fossilized body? Did someone just say, "hey, this looks close enough to that big blue bug we stepped on yesterday"?

    1. Re:Mouth = wings? by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It had wings on its mouth, did it? How can you really tell without, say, a piece of fossilized body?

      You allways need a whole body to identify a creature huh AC? You can't tell a rhino from a cow just by looking at its head?

      Well guess what, biologist who specialise in fossilised insects can recognise them on based on their distinctive mouth parts.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    2. Re:Mouth = wings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You allways [sic] need a whole body to identify a creature huh AC?

      No, but you need to read the article carefully before you speak, lest you wedge your foot in your mouth. Here's the important bit, since you obviously didn't read the article:

      "Rhyniognatha could have had wings, say the authors, but this is impossible to confirm since the wings themselves are missing."

      Care to try again?

    3. Re:Mouth = wings? by nobody69 · · Score: 2, Informative

      When discussing organisms at the genus level and up, you usually find that looks of seemingly unrelated characteristics are found together. Iirc from my zoology classes a decade-plus ago, mouthparts are pretty variable in insects, so it's not that unlikely that going an insect could be identified as a flyer from just the mouth parts.

      Of course, since all fossils are fakes, this discussion is probably moot:)

      --
      "Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
  4. how old? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "lived between 408 and 438 million years ago"... so it was 30 million years old? no wonder it went to live in Scotland!

    1. Re:how old? by cujo_1111 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Shouldn't it have moved to Florida?

      --
      If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
  5. Protowings? by ktanmay · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article is pretty sketchy on details, so here's something that will help a little. Now here's the most important part from that article, "Rhyniognatha could have had wings, say the authors, but this is impossible to confirm since the wings themselves are missing."

    1. Re:Protowings? by Glenda+Slagg · · Score: 3, Funny
      So something 420 million years ago liked to pull the wings off flies???

      Ah - the more things change, the more they stay the same...

      --
      - - Sha la la la . . .
    2. Re:Protowings? by El · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uh, perhaps protowings do not fossilize very well? Are there samples of amber going back 400 million years that we should be looking in?

      --

      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

  6. Jaws and wings by axolotl_farmer · · Score: 5, Informative

    How can they tell that these mandibles are from a winged insect when there are no wings fossilized?

    Winged insects and silverfish (the closest realtice of the winged insects) share several advanced traits. One is how the mandible attaches to the head capsule. This type of mandible attaches by two point and is called 'dicondylic'.

    The fossil mandibles are clearly dicondylic, and are also of a type not known from silverfish at all. They are of a broad chewing type more associated with 'higher' insects such as grasshoppers or cockroaches. Since there are no wings, they can't be abolutely sure if this was a winged insect or an unknown wingless insect more closely related to winged insects that to silverfish.

    1. Re:Jaws and wings by olclops · · Score: 1

      Maybe they found the fossil buried in the sky.

  7. this conversation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    [shivers]

    Silverfish...mandibles attaching to head capsule...chewing type...not known from silverfish...

    [shivers some more]