By Harvard University, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology December 15, 2023A groundbreaking research study has found the earliest recognized instance of leaf mining by insects in a 312-million-year-old fossil, pressing back the approximated origin of this behavior by 70 million years and providing brand-new insights into the evolution and behaviors of early bugs. Paleontologists frequently rely on trace fossils to discover about these ancient bugs, which are nearly solely found as traces on fossil plants. “Further back in time, its the trace fossils that inform us more about the advancement and habits of pests than the body fossils since plants and the trace fossils on them maintain extremely well.” Of all of the ways that insects feed internally within plants– the mining of the insides of leaves, the tumor-like galls in which a bug takes control of the developmental machinery of a plant, the borings and galleries of insects in wood, and myriad methods that bugs attack seeds to consume nutritious embryonic tissues– it is mining that has been the most strange,” said co-author, Conrad C. Labandeira, Senior Research Geologist and Curator of Fossil Arthropods at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The Rhode Island Formation was originally a swampy, water-logged environment which offered an anoxic setting that maintained plant fossils really well; what paleontologists call a Lagerstätte, a site that produces amazing fossils with remarkable preservation.
Paleontologists frequently rely on trace fossils to discover about these ancient bugs, which are almost specifically discovered as traces on fossil plants. “Further back in time, its the trace fossils that tell us more about the advancement and behavior of insects than the body fossils since plants and the trace fossils on them maintain really well. The Rhode Island Formation was originally a swampy, water-logged environment which supplied an anoxic setting that preserved plant fossils extremely well; what paleontologists call a Lagerstätte, a site that produces remarkable fossils with extraordinary conservation.
