Photo Credit: Ana_Cotta via Compfight cc
Last week on Fossil Friday we left the land of the vertebrates and met an interesting insect. This winged beauty was a real head-scratcher for the paleo-lovers, but an easy answer for naturalists! The correct answers came from Melissa Enos Hanson from Mass Audubon and Josh Leisenring from the National Aquairum. Go naturalists!
So, what was it?
Dragonfly Larvae (aka nymph), Libuella doris, from Bologna, Italy, dated to the Upper Miocene.
From the Smithsonian's website:
"Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet."
Kudos to Josh and Melissa! You win bragging rights for the week.
