Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Damselfly Fossil



The Field Museum of Chicago has an amazing exhibit of insect fossils. The one pictured above was found in 1988 at the Green River Formation of Fossil Lake (Lincoln County), Wyoming, USA. The image is of a damselfly fossil called Zygoptera sp. (Selys, 1854). It existed in the Eocene Epoch about 54.8 to 33.7 million years ago. Damselflies started appearing in the fossil record of the Permian Period.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PE 51414.

Learn more from the museum's Brain Scoop You Tube channel featuring Emily Graslie explaining more about this special research fossil site.