70,000,000-YEAR OLD FLY

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1927, Page 1

70,000,000-YEAR OLD FLY

(Bv Science Service.) The venerable place of the cockroach as the oldest insect with, wings in the world is assured, according to Dr R. J. Tillyard, entomologist of the Cawthron Institution at Nelson, New Zealand. In a talk before the Entomological Society of AA r asbington he disenssed the development of all the different orders of insects from the first wingless forms down through the period of giant insects to oni own present-day forms. Australia is a particular/ good hunting ground for fossil remains of insect, said Dr Tillyard, beoausenot having been inhabited very long by civilised races it contained many fossil that have not been worked over. They have likewise never been submerged by prehistoric seas or disturbed by glaciers. This is an important consideration, since the small size of insects fossils is the occasion of their being easily overlooked and broken. These circumstances probably acount, he said, for his finding a 70,000.000 year old scorpion fly, a very ancient type of insect, of which very few modern representatives are left only two feet below the surface. In the immediate neighbourhood he captured a liling specimen, the direct descendant of this denizen of the upper Permian era, which varied from its remote ancestor only by being a little smaller. A dragon fly with two long tails made up of 500 segmens, mayflies with wings over seven inches long, a bee-like insect with three pairs of wings, whose place in the insect family tree is a matter of much scientific dispute, comprise a few of the highlights of Dr. Tillyard’s researches among the insects of past ages. His fossil records of the evolutionary history of the beetle are singularly complete. Distinguishing mark of the beetle family is the shiuey convex case or elytra under series which they fold their wings. Dr Tillyard series of fossils shows the development of this protective covering from a flat veined wing of the very earliest forms into a convex elytra with veins replaced by grooves resembling fairly closely that which any June-bug sports to-day.