Oldest Insect Found

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

pic at link


http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/02/11/oldest.insect.ap/

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- A tiny fossil discovered in the 1920s and
then largely ignored has been identified as the oldest known insect,
scientists report. The discovery pushes back the origins of Earth's most
prolific life form some 20 million years.

The new analysis of the 400-million-year-old specimen also suggests that
it may have had wings, hinting that winged insects -- and insects in
general -- arose much earlier than had been presumed.

Encased in translucent rock called chert, the fossil is about an eighth of
an inch square and reveals a pair of triangular jaws that are strikingly
similar to those found only in winged insects, said David A. Grimaldi,
curator of entomology at the American Museum of Natural History in New
York. 
...