Paleontologists discovered the oldest sucking insects with a long proboscis, which lived 273-283 million years ago in the Perm Territory.
The journal Current Biology reports that scientists have studied the structure of these insects’ mouths and believe they pollinate ancient seedless plants against drops of sweet liquid.
According to modern scientific data, insects pollinated plants even before flowering plants appeared. The presence of long sucking proboscis in insects confirms this process.
Until now, the oldest mouth structure of this species is believed to be in bands and scorpions found in Jurassic deposits about 165 million years old in China. The new study allows paleontologists to date the origin of pollinating insects to more than 100 million years ago.
Scientists from the Institute of Paleontology and the Institute of Geology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with scientists from Poland, studied traces of insects from the Protomeropidae family found in early Permian sediments in the village of Chikarda. The Perm region, however, did not determine their full membership.
However, they proved that these insects had a proboscis consisting of two jointed fingers on the lower jaw, as is currently the case in some insect species and modern insects. Apparently ancient insects fed by sucking droplets from the seeds of the extinct Angaropeltaceae family instead of nectar.
What is interesting is that pods of Angaropeltaceae seeds were found at the site of fossils of these insects, said Alexander Khramov, senior researcher at the Paleontology Institute. These pods are kept half closed until the seeds mature, which reduces the effectiveness of wind in the pollination process. This means that the main role of pollination of these plants is played by insects.
Source: RIA Novosti
Source: Arabic RT
