In Antarctica, scientists have discovered an insect dating back to the Triassic period for the first time.

Antarctica, despite its seemingly lifeless appearance today, was a densely populated region millions of years ago. This is evidenced not only by the discovery of dinosaurs or dinosaur tracks in southeastern Australia — during the Cretaceous period (145-66 million years ago), both continents were connected. Paleontological excavations have also taken place in Antarctica, where the four-legged Antarctopelta oliveroi, which lived in the Late Cretaceous, was found, along with remains of extinct therapsids known as trinaxodonts from the Early Triassic and other vertebrates.

Insects, the persistent companions of large animals, have also been discovered in various strata of Antarctica. Fossilized beetles were extracted from the Jurassic formations of Victoria Land, while weevils were found in rocks from the Neogene period. Evidence of insects on the vegetation of the Late Cretaceous was identified in the South Shetland Islands archipelago.

There are numerous such examples, but to date, no fossil invertebrates from the Triassic period (251.9-201.3 million years ago) have been identified in Antarctica. Recently, paleontologists from Argentina and Germany described the first such finding. An expedition traveled to the southern continent in 2018-2019, where specialists studied Triassic sandstones and argillites in northern Victoria Land. There, they discovered a fragment of an ancient insect wing, the description of which was published in the journal Antarctic Science.

The sample was found on the surface of one of the prehistoric plants — within that formation, scientists identified extinct species of Dicroidium and Linguifolium. The fossilized wing specimen is dated to the Upper Triassic (237-201.3 million years ago), and researchers were able to classify its owner down to the subfamily level — Permochoristidae. The wing left an imprint measuring 8.2 millimeters in length, featuring characteristic venation and edges, although the base was not preserved. It was through these imprints that paleontologists determined the taxonomy.

These extinct insects from the order Mecoptera dominated during the Permian period (298.9-251.9 million years ago), but they began to decline at the start of the Triassic, possibly along with many other species during the Great Extinction. The Permochoristidae family ultimately disappeared in the Jurassic period, replaced by other groups. The Antarctic discovery expands the habitat range of this ancient insect to a global scale: representatives of this subfamily have been found in Australia, South Africa, Europe, Asia, and America.

As the authors of the article emphasize, this is the first insect found in Antarctica that dates back to the Triassic period. It was previously thought that such rarity was due to the extreme latitudes, where insect diversity is lower than, for example, in Africa, closer to the equator. However, specialists have a different opinion: it is more likely that paleontologists simply overlooked such tiny fossils.