Example of a living representative of a primitive, micro-lepidopteran moth belonging to the Glossata, moths that bear a proboscid adapted for sucking up fluids, including nectar. Size of the scale bar is 1 cm. (Photo taken by Hossein Rajaei, Museum für Naturkunde, Germany.)
2012年，太阳城网赌平台(Boston College)太阳城官网教授保罗. Strother was examining soil samples for pollen, spores, 植物和昆虫腿的碎片——有机碎片，在2亿年前的灾难性地球事件中被困在沉积物中，否则可能被认为是“池塘浮渣”.
在德国乡村钻探的岩石样本幻灯片中包括一些斯特罗瑟看起来很熟悉的材料, 他是太阳城网赌平台韦斯顿天文台地球与环境科学系的太阳城官网员, who studies the origin and early evolution of land plants. What he saw were features similar to those found in insect wings.
令人困惑的是，这些类型的飞蛾和蝴蝶——被称为鳞翅目——长期以来被认为是在5000万到7000万年之后进化而来的, 在白垩纪时期，第一批开花植物成为了它们的主要食物来源.
“The consensus has been that insects followed flowers,” said Strother, a co-author of “A Triassic-Jurassic window into the evolution of Lepidoptera,” a new report published in Science Advances. “But that would be 50 million years later than what the wings were saying. 至少可以说，在花出现之前就已经有了蝴蝶，这是很奇怪的.”
Five years later, 斯特罗瑟和来自德国自然历史博物馆和荷兰一所大学的同事们提出了一个科学案例，证明鳞翅目的进化比之前确定的要早——出现在侏罗纪时期.
Absent flowers, the researchers report, primitive moths and butterflies, known as the Glossata, 发展了身体特征——即吮吸的长嘴——通过从未成熟的裸子植物种子的尖端吸取水滴来寻找营养.
“我们发现，这些有口器的蝴蝶和飞蛾以裸子植物种子的花粉滴为食，这些种子来自与松树有关的针叶树, seed plants without fruits and flowers. 它们以圆锥体的种子为食，主要是作为水源。.
甚至查尔斯·达尔文(Charles Darwin)也把开花植物的神秘进化称为“令人憎恶的谜团”.”
科学家们认为，开花植物先于以它们为食的昆虫出现. 但太阳城官网人员逐渐开始拼凑证据，证明飞蛾和蝴蝶早在白垩纪时期就存在了, which began 145 million years ago.
太阳城官网小组的发现揭示了共同进化的经典例子:授粉昆虫——苍蝇之间的进化相互作用, bees, wasps, butterflies and moths – and angiosperms, or flowers, Strother said.
“Our discovery does not change this, but instead, 它证明鳞翅目的前身鳞翅目是通过对裸子胚珠的捕食适应而进化的, or the pollen droplets,” said Strother. “These insects later transferred their feeding preference onto angiosperms, and, as a result, 最终与花共同进化，它们在吸食花蜜的同时传递花粉.”
“The consensus has been that insects followed flowers. But that would be 50 million years later than what the wings were saying. 至少可以说，在花出现之前就已经有了蝴蝶，这是很奇怪的.”
事实证明，对昆虫进化形成更清晰的认识是难以实现的，因为我们从古代岩石中了解到的很多东西, soil and fossils comes from earth once covered by oceans, said Strother. Moths and butterflies lived over land masses. 此外，它们精致的特征在石化之前很容易变质.
Utrecht University paleontologist Bas van de Schootbrugge和他的同事们收集了一组含有飞蛾和蝴蝶化石残骸的样品，仔细地确定了在三叠纪和侏罗纪之间的灾难性过渡被保存在岩石中的地区的地球样品中鳞翅目的存在.
2.01亿年前的大灭绝事件导致大约35%的物种灭绝, which makes the survival and diversification of Lepidoptera all the more remarkable.
Assembling the evidence required a team that included Strother and van de Schootbrugee, Utrecht University’s Timo van Eldijk, an undergraduate at the time, Carolien Weijst, and Henk Visscher; as well as Torsten Wappler of the German natural history museum Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, and Hossein Rajaei of Museum für Naturkunde, in Stuttgart.
2012年，斯特罗瑟正在检查样本玻片，观察藻类、真菌和土壤微生物. “在你溶解掉样品中的矿物质之后，这些是有机萃取物，你看到的是任何有机的东西. There are pollen and spores. There are other things. Pieces of plant cuticles. Resistant organic material. Insect legs. Ninety-nine percent is plant debris.
“It’s basically pond scum,” said Strother, referring to the film of debris that can sit atop a pool of standing water.
Part of what he saw looked similar to insects from another era, he said. The project required linking a range of evidence, akin to a scientific detective story.
“This is the old-fashioned science of discovery,” said Strother. “我们正在太阳城官网这个生活在数亿年前的微观世界，我们不知道它们是什么. The challenge is: can we figure out what they are? 其中一部分是拼凑生命之树，或生物体随着时间的推移而进化. It is more like a puzzle or a mystery.”
—Ed Hayward | University Communications