A milestone has been reached in mapping the world’s insect history, specifically in Princeton, as two new fossils of the order of dragonflies, some 50 million years old, have been discovered. Descriptions and names of the fossils were recently published in The Canadian Entomologist by paleontologist Bruce Archibald of the University of British Columbia’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum and Robert Cannings, entomologist emeritus of the Royal British Columbia Museum. Archibald said there’s a beautiful fossil record of insects in British Columbia from the time he’s looking at, about 50-51 million years ago. “What I’m interested in is not so much after the dinosaurs went extinct. So what’s happening is that the world is starting to become modern,” he said. “It’s not this really weird Mesozoic era of dinosaurs and weird plants and stuff anymore. We are now in a time where we are beginning to see the modern world emerge. And insects are really useful for that, I see a lot of modern types.’ One of the fossils is a dragonfly of the Darner family, which is very common today, according to Archibald. “This wouldn’t look at all out of place next to a pond or out in the backyard,” he said. “The other one is a relative of dragonflies, which is an extinct group, that entomologists would say, ‘Well that’s really weird, that’s different.’ The main difference between dragonflies with this species is that their heads and eyes will look very different. Princeton has long been known for the discovery of fossil insects, with collecting taking place in the area for nearly 150 years. George Mercer Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada first reported fossil insects in British Columbia in 1877. He reported finding them near Princeton on the banks of the Similkameen River. Archibald said that over the next century, scientists will come and collect fossils, studying the insects, but no one has ever found a dragonfly or a dragonfly relative. That was until Princeton residents Kathy Sipkins, director of fossil collections at the Princeton Museum, and Beverly Burlingham, an avid collector who regularly brings fossils to the museum, sent Archibald a photo of their discovery. “I work very closely with them, they find fossils and take cell phone pictures and text them back to me right away,” he said with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s great. Guys, this is the fishing of the month or the fishing of the year, because they found these two.” The member of an extinct relative of dragonflies and daisies identified by Archibald and Cannings was named Cephalozygoptera earlier that year. “It’s really cool to fill that gap and start to understand more about this community and understand how dragonflies and their relatives came to be at this time, the changes we’re going through in British Columbia.” Recognizing the age of the fossil depends on understanding what was happening at specific time periods and in that climate. “The Princeton region was cool mountainous in a very warm world with a high carbon content in the atmosphere,” Archibald said. “Along with that high elevation at that uplift there’s been a lot of volcanism, so there are volcanoes going out regionally and across southern BC.” Scientists can look at how much of that ash in the fossil has decayed and review it to figure out how long ago the ash came out of the ground. Archibald spends time speaking in Princeton, working with the city, the museum and the Upper Similkameen Indian Band to make discoveries. He plans to return in the fall for another discussion. Another series of important fossils has been discovered and these will be published in the coming years. “I see that doing his job is a big ecosystem of people, and the job of that job is to understand how the world became modern. After this great catastrophe, the extinction of the dinosaurs. And so far, it’s going really well, we’re just moving forward.” To learn more about Archibald’s research, visit his website here, or to read his paper documenting the dragonfly, find it online here.
