“Extremely Rare” – Researchers Discover Extraordinary Tiny Insect Fossils in New Zealand

 

Tiny whitefly fossils discovered in Hindon Maar offer rare insights into New Zealand’s ancient ecosystems. These 15-million-year-old specimens highlight whiteflies’ role in past forests and mark a significant addition to New Zealand’s growing insect fossil record.

Newly discovered insect fossils are so small they can barely be seen by the human eye but have been preserved in an “extraordinary” way.

Published in the journal Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, a new study reveals rare whitefly insect fossils have been found in Miocene age crater lake sediments at Hindon Maar, near Dunedin.

Adult whiteflies are tiny insects about 3mm in size, smaller if they are immature.

The fossils found at Hindon Maar are about 1.5mm by 1.25mm and have been preserved in the position they lived and died, attached to the underside of a fossil leaf.

Exceptional Preservation and Unique Features

Black with an oval-shaped body, they have some similarities to modern-day whiteflies – such as the shape and color – but differ in that all the segments of the body are distinctly defined by deep sutures.

Co-author Dr Uwe Kaulfuss, of the University of Göttingen in Germany and former postdoctoral fellow in the University of Otago’s Department of Geology, discovered the tiny fossils during an excavation at Hindon earlier this year.

“Fossils of adult whitefly insects are not uncommon, but it takes extraordinary circumstances for the puparia – the protective shell the insect emerges from – to become fossilized,” Dr Kaulfuss says.

“Some 15 million years ago, the leaf with the puparia must have become detached from a tree, blown into the small lake, and sank to the deep lake floor to be covered by sediment and become fossilized. It must have happened in rapid succession as the tiny insect fossils are exquisitely preserved.

“The new genus and species described in our study reveals for the first time that whitefly insects were an ecological component in ancient forests on the South Island.”

Insight into New Zealand’s Fossil Record

“It was difficult to see much with the naked eye but once the fossils were under a microscope, we could see the amazing detail,” she says.

“The fact that they are still in life position on the leaf is incredible and extremely rare. These little fossils are the first of their kind to be found in New Zealand and only the third example of such fossil puparia known globally.

website: popularscientist.com

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