Saturday 3 December 2016

Rare Antarctic beetle find delights

BeetlesScientists have made a rare find: a new species of fossil beetle from Antarctica.
It's the first evidence of a ground beetle found on the southernmost continent.
And Antarctic insects are themselves a rarity - the absence of biodiversity is considered a consequence of a lack of moisture, vegetation and the low temperatures.
The specimen is described in the scientific journal Zookeys.
Fossilised forewings from a pair of beetles were discovered on the 200km-long Beardmore Glacier, near the Transantarctic Mountains.
The new species and genus has been named Ball's Antarctic Tundra Beetle, after George E Ball - an expert on ground beetles.
It lived between 14 and 20 million years ago, when Antarctica was warmer than today.
The beetle joins a sparse record of insects from the southernmost continent. Today, Antarctica's insect fauna consists of just three species of flightless midges.Read More

No comments:

Post a Comment