Older Than Dinosaurs: Insect History PDF

OLDER THAN DINOSAURS or Insect History I. Fossils and amber A. Jurassic dinosaurs have nothing on insects and relatives B. First distant ancestors - trilobites (400-600 M years ago) and horseshoe cra...

OLDER THAN DINOSAURS or Insect History I. Fossils and amber A. Jurassic dinosaurs have nothing on insects and relatives B. First distant ancestors - trilobites (400-600 M years ago) and horseshoe crabs (350 M years ago) C. First insect fossils - tiny, wingless, soft bodied ones (380 M years ago) More familiar dragonfly relatives (250-280 M years ago) D. Most modern insect relatives present before Jurassic (180 M years ago) E. Many of today's insects present in mid Tertiary (25-30 M years ago) II. Tracing the literature A. Early cave drawings (6,000 BC), China and silkworms (4,700 BC), Egypt and honeybees, scarabs (3,500 BC), Greece and body pests (1,000 BC) B. Aristotle (384-322 BC) - Father of Zoology, Historia Animalium C. Theophrastus (380-287 BC) - first to catalog insect crop pests D. Pliny the Elder (23-79) - Historia Naturales Book 11 E. Table of known species very small Insect Aristotle Pliny Grasshoppers 3 4 Beetles 6 9 Bees, wasps 12 11 Butterflies 6 6 Flies 8 8 Bugs, aphids 5 7 Others 7 16 Total 47 61 A. F. Johann Sperling - Zoologia physica (1661) "After all, we know at least 40 species of beetles, 50 of caterpillars, 70 of flies and over 100 butterflies" G. John Ray (1627-1705) - Historia insectorum "Butterflies and beetles are such numerous groups that I believe we have at least 150 or more species of each in England. Together with larvae and pupae, that makes 900 species. The number of insect species in the whole world, on land and water, must be in the region of 10,000...” III. Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) - Systema Naturae 10th ed (1758) - binomial system of nomenclature