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When is the world’s oldest known mosquito larva? mighty tyrannosaurus rex Found trapped in a piece of rotating Earth Sky Which scientists have described as a “rare stroke of luck”.
“Excellently preserved” from fossil cretaceous era, 99 million years old, Comes from the Kachin region of Myanmar and may shed more light on the development of wormThis represents the first mosquito larvae From this time only adults have been preserved as fossils in amber. Mosquito According to a new study, was found earlier.
The fossil larva has been described and named as a new species of a new genus. Early Cretobates.
Until now, mosquitoes from this time period have been interpreted as belonging to a separate group, the Burmaculicinae, an extinct lineage within the mosquito group Culicidae.
Scientists have described the fossil as “a rare coincidence of fate” because its formation would have required a drop of tree resin to fall into a small pool of water to preserve the aquatic larvae in amber.
“This fossil is unique because the larva is very similar to the modern species,” says zoologist André Amaral of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
“In contrast to all other fossil discoveries of mosquitoes from this period, which display highly unusual morphological traits that are no longer present in today’s species,” explained Dr. Amaral, who is also lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. Gondwana Research.
newly discovered Early Cretobates Researchers say it belongs to the Sabethinae group, which also includes some modern species.
Early Cretobates The larvae, like modern mosquitoes, are thought to live in small accumulations of water, such as in hollows of tree branches or between plant leaves.
Previous fossil research has helped link the evolutionary origins of mosquitoes to the Jurassic period, approximately 201 million years ago to 145 million years ago.
However, estimates based on DNA analysis suggest that mosquitoes probably emerged more than 200 million years ago, between the Triassic and Jurassic eras.
The latest findings provide new clues to narrow down the exact time period when the insect first emerged.
“This new fossil indicates that extinct forms of mosquitoes coexisted with modern mosquitoes during the Cretaceous,” the researchers wrote.
“Our results strongly indicate that mosquitoes diversified as early as the Jurassic period and that the morphology of their larvae has remained remarkably similar for nearly 100 million years,” says Dr. Amaral.