A well-preserved 47-million-year-old cicada fossil has been discovered, and it is so detailed that even the veins in its wings are clearly visible. Even though the fossil is of a female cicada, which usually doesn’t sing, scientists believe their shape and features belong to a group where the males could sing.
These cicada fossils were in such good shape that scientists could match them to a modern group of cicadas called Platypleurini, mostly found in Africa and Asia, CNN reported. Describing the fossil, researchers said it still had a rostrum but needed to be studied closely to find out if it used it for feeding on plant tissues, as most modern cicadas do.
Scientists said the fossil showed traces of colours and patterns on its wings, which modern cicadas usually use to blend into tree trunks to hide from predators.
Lead study author Dr Hui Jiang, a palaeontologist and researcher with the Bonn Institute of Organismic Biology at the University of Bonn in Germany, said, “Earlier research showed this was in Africa about 30 million to 25 million years ago and dispersed from there.”
According to Dr Conrad Labandeira, a fossil expert at the Smithsonian, the discovery showed the group of cicadas evolved slower than earlier studies based on DNA suggested. He mentioned that older fossils of this lineage must be present and have yet to be discovered.
“Such discoveries would assist in providing better calibrations for determining a more realistic evolutionary rate,” he added.
Scientists said the fossil differed from modern cicadas in terms of forewings. “Such discoveries would assist in providing better calibrations for determining a more realistic evolutionary rate,” Mr Labandeira added.
Mr Jiang said, “This fossil pushes back the known fossil record of sound-producing cicadas in the tribe Platypleurini by approximately 20 million years, indicating that the diversification of this group occurred much earlier than previously recognised.”