Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito (46 million years old) Full Of Blood

Researchers have just published an exciting find: a 46-million-year-old mosquito full of blood. Next stop "Jurassic Park"? Not so fast. The find is really interesting because it's the first example of blood-feeding in these ancient insects. We hadn't had clear evidence of when this began until now. They found the mosquito in shale sediments in Montana. "This shows that details of a blood-sucking mosquito can be nicely preserved in a medium other than amber," George Poinar, who studies fossilized insects at Oregon State University in Corvallis, told Nature's Ed Yong. "It also shows that some porphyrin compounds in vertebrate blood can survive under the right conditions for millions of years." Similar blood compounds have been found in ancient dinosaur bones...more