Researchers uncover world's oldest fossil impression of a flying insect

Michael S. Engel, a leading entomologist at the University of Kansas, is working with Knecht and Benner to study the insect. He says that a preliminary inspection of the anatomy indicates that it may be related to the common mayfly. "We can tell from the imprint that it has a very squat position when it lands," Engel says. "Its legs are sprawled and its belly is pressed down. The only group that does that today is the mayfly."

Identifying the insect will also help the researchers to gain knowledge about the ecosystem of that period and what type of animals lived in it. The specimen may also advance understanding of insect flight and evolution from smaller, non-flying scurrying animals.

"Once we pin down what type of insect it is we can begin to think about the conditions, the climate and life that must have existed in the environment to support its life," says Knecht. "One focus is the insect itself. Another is the broader big picture of the world it lived in."

A moment 300 million years ago

The insect lived in the Pennsylvanian Era - the second half of the Carboniferous Period - and dates back to about 310 million years. Nearby sites of similar age exist in the Canadian Maritimes, Pennsylvania and the southeastern United States. There are no other active explorations of Pennsylvanian rock formation in New England.

Knecht learned of the site while conducting research on sedimentary rocks in the region for his senior thesis. He found an obscure reference to it in an unpublished master's thesis on amphibian trackways that was originally written by a Brown University student in 1929. The paper was published a year later in the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

Knecht, 30, is a senior at Tufts who enrolled through Tufts' Resumed Education for Adult Learners program (REAL), following coursework at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He is a native of Chatham, Mass. At Tufts he has received four grants and fellowship money to support his work from the Paleontological Society, the Geological Society of America and Tufts University.

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