365 million years old and no wrinkles
On the Net (where the discovery spread like wildfire in just a few days and where a google search now yields thousands of results!), some people mention the resemblance of this little animal to grasshoppers. However, to speak of Strudiella as an ancestor of one or other species is undoubtedly a bit premature. “ What we can say, is that its group must be close to something that gave rise to the insects we know today and which points to a particular evolution ”, explains Julien Denayer. The debate is openSince this discovery, the paleontologists from Liege have tasked themselves with describing the environment in which the insect must have lived. The chances are, given the shape of its mandibles, that it was phytophageous (that is to say that it fed exclusively on plants) or omnivorous (eating a mixture of food of both plant and animal origin). It undoubtedly lived on land (seemingly, its body does not seem to possess any organ or morphological characteristic that would allow it to develop in an aquatic environment). Could it have fallen into the water one day to find itself “imprisoned ” in the sediment of this river? The little animal has not yet revealed all its secrets. |
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© 2007 ULi�ge
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