Perspectives ‘Evolutionary origins’ insects today. The authors of the new continue to be evidence state that previously fossil pushed back in time evidence showed ‘ t h a t i n s e c t Michael J. Oard w i n g s o r i g - inated in the New fossil discoveries continue Early Carbon- to push back the origin of organisms iferous period, within the evolutionary geological some 90, 170 column and timescale. I have and 270 Myr be- previously reported on this trend fore pterosaurs, in several perspective articles birds and bats in TJ.1–4 If this trend continues, respectively … supposed evolutionary origins of .’8 most multicelled organisms at the There are Photo by Joachim Scheven phylum level will be pushed back to no ancestors or the Cambrian explosion within the transitional fossils evolutionary geological column. So for such a huge many new phyla have been added to leap in information the Cambrian explosion in the last few or specified com- decades that it is now being called the plexity: ‘Cambrian Big Bang’. During this ‘A diverse as- Cambrian big bang, 50% to possibly semblage of The evolution of flight is also contradicted by ‘living fossils’ of as high as 85% of animal phyla winged insects flying insects preserved in amber. made their first appearances with no appears sudden- ancestors.5 This is an astronomical ly in the fossil increase in information and exhibits a record about 330 million years References pattern opposite to that expected from ago, and there are few clues about their evolutionary lineage.’9 1. Oard, M.J., Evolution pushed further into the evolution. The evidence very strongly past, TJ 10(2):171–172, 1996. favours creation. If the author’s analogy with present insects holds up, the new fossil 2. Oard, M.J., How well do paleontologists know A recent re-discovery of a fossil analysis places the winged insect 70 fossil distributions? TJ 14(1):7–8, 2000. that was collected early in the twentieth to 80 million years earlier than any 3. Oard, M.J., Supposed eukaryote evolution century has not only pushed the origin previously discovered winged insect, pushed back one billion years, TJ 15(1):4, of insects further back in the fossil well past 400 million years, still with 2001. record, but also it is probable that the no ancestors. Furthermore, the origin 4. Oard, M.J., Arthropods supposedly invaded origin of flight has been extended well of wings and flight must be even land 40 million years earlier, TJ 17(2):3–4, backwards within the evolutionary 2003. 6 earlier, at least 20 million years earlier paradigm. The fossil, named in the evolutionary framework: 5. Meyer, S.C., Ross, M., Nelson, P. and Chien, P., Rhyniognatha hirsti, was discovered ‘If Rhyniognatha had wings, the The Cambrian explosion: biology’s big bang; in 1919 in chert from Scotland’s Old evolutionary origin of those fea- in: Campbell, J.A. and Meyer, S.C. (Eds.), Red Sandstone. A 1928 report on Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, tures probably occurred at least 20 Michigan State University Press, East Lan- the fossil described it as ‘insect like’. million years earlier, says Conrad sing, MI, pp. 323–402, 2003. Since then it has sat in a drawer in the C. Labandeira of the Smithsonian 6. Engel, M.S. and Grimaldi, D.A., New light 9 British Museum of Natural History, Institution in Washington, D.C.’ shed on the oldest insect, Nature 427:627–630, without much attention. However, a That would place the origin of 2004. recent reanalysis of the fragmentary flight clear back to the early Silurian 7. Engel, ref. 6, p. 627. fossil has raised great interest, as it is within the evolutionary geological 8. Engel, ref. 6, p. 629. now considered the earliest record of column. Since insects usually need true insects.7 plants, pushing back the origin of 9. Perkins, S., Early flight? Science News 165: 100, 2004. Furthermore, two double-hinged insects, and possibly flight, supports 0.1-millimetre-long mandibles new information that has pushed 10. Wellman, C.H., Osterloff, P.L. and Mohlud- din, U., Fragments of the earliest land plants, indicate that the insect probably had the origin of land plants back to Nature 425:282–285, 2003. wings. This is based on its having the Ordovician period within the a similar morphology to winged evolutionary paradigm.8,10 TJ 18(3) 2004 7.