Discovery of the Earliest Winged Insects from the Carboniferous: A New Megasecopteran Species and the Ecology of Paleozoic Insects
- 演化之聲
- Mar 14
- 4 min read
A dry and desolate plateau in modern Argentina once formed part of a dynamic ancient basin more than 320 million years ago. During that time, rivers, lakes, and glaciers alternated across the landscape. This region, known today as the Paganzo Basin, accumulated sedimentary deposits reaching a thickness of nearly 4,500 meters and preserves geological records of rhythmic glacial and interglacial cycles during the Late Paleozoic ice age.
Within the lowermost unit of this basin, the Guandacol Formation, palaeontologists discovered an exceptionally valuable fossil: one of the earliest known winged insects in the world. Fossils of winged insects from the Mississippian (early Carboniferous) are extraordinarily rare. So far, only two confirmed localities have yielded such remains: Delitzsch in Germany and Guandacol in La Rioja Province, Argentina. Absolute dating of the Guandacol strata indicates an age of about 326 million years, placing the fossils in the Serpukhovian stage of the Carboniferous.
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