How Big Were Mosquitoes in the Jurassic Period?
WouterDuring the Jurassic Period, mosquitoes could have buzzed around and bitten dinosaurs. They may have carried malaria, which could have played a role in the extinction of dinosaurs. There is new evidence of blood-filled mosquitoes from the dinosaur age, which is exciting news for scientists.
The mosquito discovered by Greenwalt has blood in its abdomen. This is the first direct evidence that mosquitoes were blood-feeding insects. The insect has been preserved in amber, which is an ancient form of tree sap. It is rare to find a fossil mosquito in sedimentary rock. However, the Constenius family donated 600 pieces of shale from Montana to the Smithsonian two years ago.
In the Jurassic Park movie, scientists extract DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes and use it to create terrifying creatures. The movie grossed over $1 billion worldwide. It’s due out in theaters this spring.
Researchers at the US National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and the Natural History Museum of London have been working on the mosquito. They have described two new mosquito species from compression fossils. One species is called Toxorhynchites rutilus, and the other is called Priscoculex burmanicus.
This species is known for its fuzzy antennae and lacks a long proboscis. They were not known until 46 million years ago, when mosquitoes first started to emerge from the Eocene Epoch of the Cenozoic era.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms the existence of blood-filled mosquitoes in the Jurassic Period. This discovery has implications for other fossils.
