Canadian Fossil Believed ‘Oldest Insect in the World’

Scientists believe that they have discovered the fossilized remains of the oldest insect ever found, a hairy, grotesque little bug with large, bulging eyes.

“This is the oldest insect in the world,” Conrad C. Labandeira of the University of Chicago said of the fossil, which was found in Quebec province, Canada. And it is the oldest terrestrial creature of any kind ever discovered in North America, he added in a telephone interview.

Labandeira said the fossil consists of the head and two segments of the thorax, or upper chest. The tiny bug--which measured only about one-fifth of an inch long--was similar to the silverfish, a scaly, wingless insect. But the outside of the head was pitted, suggesting that it had more than scales.

“This thing had hair” growing out of the pits, Labandeira said.

The insect, called a bristletail, lived sometime between 390 million and 392 million years ago, said Labandeira, a graduate student of paleobiology. Labandeira, Bret S. Beall of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and Francis M. Hueber of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington published their discovery in today’s issue of the journal Science.

The creature’s most imposing features were its eyes--two disproportionately giant orbs, one on each side of its head. It also had two antennae and two arm-like appendages that appear to have been equipped with sensors to detect odors and vibrations.

Not a thing of great beauty, perhaps, “but it looks beautiful as a fossil,” Labandeira said.

The fossil has been kicking around for several years, but its importance was only recently discovered when the three scientists compared notes.

It was discovered about five years ago by Hueber while the paleobotanist was studying the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec.

“He was looking for plant material,” Labandeira said. “He happened to see this fragment, and he saved it.”

Doctoral Work

Later, Hueber showed the fossil to Beall, an expert on spiders. Beall shared the fragment with Labandeira, who was just completing his doctoral work on paleobiology, and the three concluded that they had stumbled across a fossil of one of the planet’s earliest insects.

The new find is 80 million years older than what was previously regarded as the oldest identifiable insect.

The most surprising part of the discovery, Labandeira said, was that it was nearly as old as the first land plants.

That suggests, he said, that insects emerged soon after the first plants.

“I think early terrestrial life did not lag far behind plants,” he said. “They came along about the same time or shortly thereafter.”

There is an abundance of plant fossils from that period, he said, but until now, there has been no direct evidence of animal life.

“We only get the animal life in occasional scraps,” he said.

The “scraps” that Hueber discovered near Quebec are tiny indeed. The head of the insect was only about 0.03 inch (0.7 millimeters) wide.

‘Hard to Come By’

If the dating of the fossil holds up to examination by other experts, “it would push back (the origin of insects) about 50 million years,” said Michael Greenfield, assistant professor of biology at UCLA.

Fossils from that era are extremely “hard to come by,” he said, so the discovery of the ugly little beast could be of considerable significance.

THE OLDEST BUG

Scientists have discovered the fossil remains of the oldest insect yet found on Earth--a tiny bug that lived more than 390 million years ago near Quebec, Canada. The head of the insect, as shown here in profile, was dominated by large, bulging eyes. Detailed portions of the drawing represent the fossil discovered by scientists. The portions shown in outline are reconstructions. The insect’s mouth is at the bottom, and the body was attached to the upper right.

Millimeters: 0-.7

Inches: 0-.03