Fossil Insects: Moss Bug
Order Hemiptera, Coleorryncha, Progonocimindae
Geological Time: Lower Cretaceous Late Aptian-Cenomanian (108-92 million years ago)
Size (25.4 mm = 1 inch): Insect fossil: 8 mm; Matrix: 81 mm by 85 mm
Fossil Site: Crato Formation, Nova Olinda Member, Ceara, Brazil
Code: BI058
Price: Sold
 Description:
The Araripe Basin of Brazil is home to a fantastic array of exquisitely-detailed
Early Cretaceous fossils, some of which have been preserved in three
dimensions. While the entire formation has until the last decade or
so been termed the Santana Formation, David Martill has separated
out the slightly older insect-bearing strata as the Nova Olinda Member
of the Crato Formation. Quarrying operations for the purposes of obtaining
paving stones exposes the remarkable insect fauna in much the same
way that quarrying for lithographic limestone in Solnhofen has afforded
a panoply of wonderfully-preserved Jurassic fossils in Germany. In
addition to the many orders of insects, spiders, scorpions, decapod
crustaceans, and many plants have been found. Interestingly, to date
no pterosaurs or terrestrial vertebrates have been found, in stark
contrast to the overlying Santana Formation deposits. This specimen
is a member of the Coleorryncha, or Moss Bugs whose modern-day members
are sometimes termed “living fossils”. They live in the
cool moist Nothofagus (Southern Beech) forests of South America and
Australasia where their habit of living in mosses has earned them
the common name Moss Bugs. They have a curious admixture of cicadomrphan
and hemipteran features which have earned them their own suborder.
The Crato fossils are the first New World representatives of the order,
and have yet to be scientifically described. |
