The chance discovery of fossils dating back 200 million years has revealed that butterflies evolved before flowering plants.
Scientists investigating sediment under a lagoon in northern Germany found fossilised wing scales of several species of butterfly and moth. Some fossils had a long proboscis for sucking nectar similar to modern-day moths and butterflies. It had been assumed the proboscis indicated the Lepidoptera family evolved 130 million years ago, alongside flowering plants. It is now thought early butterflies may have fed on nectar produced by Jurassic-era conifers to capture wind-blown pollen.
advances.sciencemag.org
(Information from RHS magazine ‘The Garden’, March 2018)
Scientists investigating sediment under a lagoon in northern Germany found fossilised wing scales of several species of butterfly and moth. Some fossils had a long proboscis for sucking nectar similar to modern-day moths and butterflies. It had been assumed the proboscis indicated the Lepidoptera family evolved 130 million years ago, alongside flowering plants. It is now thought early butterflies may have fed on nectar produced by Jurassic-era conifers to capture wind-blown pollen.
advances.sciencemag.org
(Information from RHS magazine ‘The Garden’, March 2018)
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