Oldest Fossilised Winged Insect Yet Discovered

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. "

Comments

Mouth = wings?

[Anonymous Coward]

...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"?

Re:Mouth = wings?

[Scrameustache]

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.

Re:Mouth = wings?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Protowings?

[El]

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