Strudiella

Strudiella devonica is a possible insect fossil, the first complete Late Devonian insect, probably terrestrial. It was recovered in the Strud (Gesves, Belgium) environment from the Bois des Mouches Formation, Upper Famennian. It had unspecialized, 'orthopteroid', mouthparts, indicating an omnivorous diet.

Strudiella
Temporal range: Famennian
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Subphylum:
Hexapoda
Class:
?Insecta
(unranked):
Dicondylia
Genus:
†Strudiella

Garrouste et al., 2012[1]
Type species
Strudiella devonica
Garrouste et al., 2012

This discovery reduces a previous gap of 45 million years in the evolutionary history of insects, part of the arthropod gap (the 'gap' still occurs in the early Carboniferous, coinciding and extending past the Romer's gap for tetrapods, which may have been caused by low oxygen levels in the atmosphere).[2] Body segments, legs and antennae are visible; however, genitalia were not preserved. The specimen has no wings, but it may be a juvenile.

See also

References
  1. Romain Garrouste, Gaël Clément, Patricia Nel, Michael S. Engel, Philippe Grandcolas, Cyrille D’Haese, Linda Lagebro, Julien Denayer, Pierre Gueriau, Patrick Lafaite, Sébastien Olive, Cyrille Prestianni and André Nel (2012). "A complete insect from the Late Devonian period". Nature. 488 (7409): 82–85. PMID 22859205, doi:10.1038/nature11281
  2. Ward, P.; Labandeira, C.; Laurin, M.; Berner, R. A. (2006). "Confirmation of Romer's Gap as a low oxygen interval constraining the timing of initial arthropod and vertebrate terrestrialization". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (45): 16818–22. Bibcode:2006PNAS..10316818W. PMC 1636538 Freely accessible. PMID 17065318. doi:10.1073/pnas.0607824103


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