Posted on 10/14/2013 8:54:39 PM PDT by blam
Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito Full Of Blood
Jennifer Welsh
Oct. 14, 2013, 5:37 PM
Blood engorged mosquito
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.
They first found the presence of iron in the female mosquito's belly, then used a non-destructive technique to study the molecules inside the find. They were able to tell that the iron was bound in a heme molecule, the molecule that lets the molecule hemoglobin transport oxygen.
Dale Greenwalt, of the Smithsonian Institution described the find in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences on Oct. 14.
"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.
That being said, there are still plenty of reasons "Jurassic Park" is very unlikely.
First, amber-preserved insects don't keep DNA intact even over thousands of years, let alone millions. Secondly, the insect used in "Jurassic Park" wasn't actually a blood-sucking variety of mosquito. Third, we've discovered that the half life of DNA is only about 520 years, not nearly long enough for there to be enough DNA left after millions ofyears.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
46 million years old my arse!
How about the t-rex bone they found with the residual muscle cells? “Still pliable,” they said. I still haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for that...after millions of years, it should have been beyond dust.
Max Baucus material?
Yep.
And, they know it’s “46 million years old,” how, exactly? The fickle “carbon dating” and other wildly inconsistent radiometric dating methods? Yeah, right.
Another shoot from the hip for the evolutoinist. They are really pushing the envelope on these finds. Why haven’t they found a fossilized bigfoot?
Clone it up! (like we need more bloodsuckers)
I seem to recall a book with this plot...
Nah. Doesn’t look a day over 30 mill.....
ping
Slap it flat!
Looks like they had democrats way back when (blood sucking parasites)
That’s funny. Why didn’t mosquitoes evolve in 45 million years?
A parasite is always going to be a parasite. Just ask the folks at WalMart.
Exactly! When something doesn't make sense (like abiogenesis, macro-evolution or the ACA), it's usually because it does not make sense!
Intriguing find.
Don’t know why some people are having trouble with its cited age. There are skeletons in the Natural History Museum that are way older.
Artcore: You have one very old butt, my friend. Do you sit on a pillow or have a blow-up ring?
Gotta show this to my son. We were just talking about Jurassic Park and amber on Monday. Thanks for posting.
"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... "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... the half life of DNA is only about 520 years, not nearly long enough for there to be enough DNA left after millions of years.
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