南京古生物所发现1.8亿年前蜉蝣化石

Science & technology

科技板块

A fossil feast

化石盛宴

The print edition contains a picture which shows part of the oldest known mayfly swarm.

印刷版中有一张照片，展示了已知的最古老的蜉蝣群的一部分。

It was collected, by a team led by Zhang Qianqi of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, from a site near Hezhou, in southern China, and is reported in the latest edition of Geology.

它是由南京地质古生物研究所的张前旗领导的一个团队从中国南方贺州附近的一个地点收集的，发表在最新一期的《地质学》刊物上。

Some 180m years ago, during the early part of the Jurassic period, this site was a lake where mayflies lived and swarmed to mate, as they do today, providing, as a side-effect, a feast for local insectivores.

大约1.8亿年前，在侏罗纪早期，这个地方是一个湖泊，蜉蝣生活在那里，成群交配，就像今天一样，同时也为当地的食虫动物提供了一场盛宴。

These probably included small pterosaurs, but not birds, which had not yet evolved.

其中可能包括小型翼龙，但不包括尚未进化的鸟类。

Insects rarely fossilise well in rock (though they do in amber), but in this case exquisite anatomical details of the creatures are visible in the mudstone that has solidified from the lake’s sediments.

昆虫很少能在岩石中很好地形成化石(尽管它们在琥珀中可以)，在由湖泊沉积物凝固而成的泥岩中，人们可以看到这些生物精致的解剖细节。