Rare fossils have been unearthed in Colorado, showing the killer striped beetle appeared 25 million years earlier than scientists thought.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign identified new killer beetles from fossilized samples found in the geological system of Green River, Colorado, 2006. The study was published in the journal Papers in Paleontology on January 19. .
When first discovered, the killer beetle fossils were split in half along the broken line of the rock. A fossil trader sells each half to a collector. Experts have detected two fossils and put them together for study.
The peculiarity is that his genitals are quite clearly observable. This is of great help to scientists who want to locate insects in a family tree or identify species, says Sam Heads, a paleontologist at the Illinois Institute of Natural History (INHS). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
However, animal genitals are often masked in compact fossils such as those from the Green River. “The sighting of small structures in the genitals is very rare. Normally we can only observe such details with animals that still exist today,” said Daniel Swanson, graduate student in entomology. pathogenesis at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said.
Experts named the newly discovered killer virus Aphelicophontes danjuddi after Dan Judd, a fossil collector who donated half of the specimen to INHS for research. They believe that Aphelicophontes danjuddi belongs to the group of insecticidal beetles. New research shows this group of killer insects appeared 25 million years earlier than scientists thought.
“There are about 7,000 scientifically described killer beetles in the world, but we have only discovered about 50. This shows that killer beetle fossils are very rare, not to mention dating fossils. It is as old as the Green River This fossil can give a lot of information, ”says Swanson.
