Interesting things can hide in preserved dung. Besides offering clues about long-gone vegetation, almost anything that gets trapped in ancient feces and stands the test of time can give us a glimpse into prehistoric life. The latest example? A tiny treasure buried in 236-million-year-old poop.
It might not be as glamorous as a bug in amber, but this dung fossil, likely left behind by a hippo-sized herbivore in what is now Argentina, contains the oldest physical evidence of butterflies or moths ever discovered. According to researchers from Argentina’s Regional Center for Scientific Research and Technology Transfer of La Rioja (CRILAR), this find, published with the Journal of South American Earth Sciences, could confirm that butterflies emerged much earlier than previously thought, right after the biggest extinction event in Earth’s history.
Roughly 250 million years ago, life on Earth came dangerously close to ending. The end-Permian mass extinction wiped out around ...
