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A fossil of an insect related to modern mosquitoes was found, which lived several million years after the largest mass extinction, writes Success in UA.
Paleontologists discovered the fossilized larva of the insect Protoanisolarva juarezi from the Diptera order, which includes modern real (blood-sucking) mosquitoes, flies and midges. The fossil was found in sediments that are about 247 million years old. This is the oldest known dipteran, predating the early dinosaurs.
The discovery was made during excavations in the northeast of Mallorca, one of the Spanish Balearic Islands, reports cikavosti.
During the research, paleontologists found a whole insect larva, which left a small imprint of organic remains on two sides of the split stone.
The analysis showed the unique preservation of the fossil. The researchers were able to study the external and internal structure of the head, some parts of the digestive system and the spiracles, the external openings of the insect's respiratory system. Researchers attribute the fossil to the family of arthropods (Anisopodidae).
The researchers note that this larva was feeding on organic matter from the soil "just" a few million years after the most dramatic mass extinction, the Permian or Great Extinction. At the border between the Permian and Triassic periods, more than 80% of species died.
In the found larva, paleontologists found the earliest evidence of an amphipneistic respiratory system, which consists of a pair of thoracic and several abdominal spiracles. They believe that this is part of the adaptation to climate change associated with extinction.
"We were able to see some of the adaptations of the first dipterans to the post-apocalyptic environment of the early Triassic, such as the respiratory system, which is still found in various groups of insects,” – speak Ricardo Perez de. La Fuente, co-author of the study from Oxford University's Natural History Museum
