The ancestors of flesh-eating carrion beetles like the one above offer, according to new research, the “earliest evidence of parental care,” dating back to 125 million years ago. The beetles were not only “exceptional parents, but they also represent the oldest known example of active parenting on the planet”:
Finding traces of exceptional parenting in the fossil record is exceedingly difficult. In this case, the team managed it by studying fossils from China and Myanmar. The fossils showed that ancient beetles from the Early Cretaceous possessed special bodily structures close to those modern beetles possess that allow them to communicate with their young. Additionally, an amber fossil they uncovered caught the beetle parents in action, showing “elaborate biparental care and defense of small vertebrate carcasses for their larvae.”
The researchers also note that several types of modern carrion beetles are endangered:
The American burying beetle, for example, is down to fewer than 1,000 individuals that live east of the Mississippi River. Even the most experienced parents in the world can’t shield their babies from the ill-effects of human-driven habitat fragmentation, it seems.
(Photo of hairy burying beetle by Laszlo Ilyes)
The Dish 