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Fossil trove sheds light on ancient antipodean ecology

The oldest known animals and plants preserved in amber from Southern Gondwana are reported in Scientific Reports this week.

Gondwana, the supercontinent made up of South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Antarctica and Australia, broke away from the Pangea supercontinent around 200 million years ago.

The findings further our understanding of ecology in Australia and New Zealand during the Late Triassic to mid-Paleogene periods (230-40 million years ago).

Jeffrey Stilwell and colleagues studied more than 5,800 amber pieces from the Macquarie Harbour Formation in Western Tasmania, dating back to the early Eocene Epoch (~54-52 million years ago) and Anglesea Coal Measures in Victoria, Australia, from the late middle Eocene (42-40 million years ago).

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Gondwana 420 million years ago – Image Credit : Fama Clamosa

The authors report a rare “frozen behaviour” of two mating long-legged flies (Dolichopodidae). The specimens also include the oldest known fossil ants from Southern Gondwana and the first Australian fossils of ‘slender springtails’, a tiny, wingless hexapod. Other organisms preserved in the amber include a cluster of juvenile spiders, biting midges (Ceratopogonidae), two liverwort and two moss species.

The authors also studied deposits found at locations in southeastern Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. These include the oldest reported amber from Southern Pangea dating back to 230 million years ago, 96-92 million year old deposits from forests near the South Pole and an intact fossil of an insect called a felt scale (Eriococcidae) from 54-52 million years ago.

The findings provide new insights into the ecology and evolution of Southern Gondwana and indicate that there may be a vast potential for future, similar finds in Australia and New Zealand.

SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Header Image Credit – Jonas Damzen

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Mark Milligan
Mark Milligan
Mark Milligan is an award winning journalist and the Managing Editor at HeritageDaily. His background is in archaeology and computer science, having written over 7,000 articles across several online publications. Mark is a member of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) and in 2023 was the recipient of the British Citizen Award for Education and the BCA Medal of Honour.

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