Description

Late Triassic
Aranbanga Volcanic Group
Windera Creek, Near Murgon, Queensland, Australia
5mm beetle on 22mm slab.

Insect. Arthropod.

Of the modern insect orders beetles are quite ancient.  Their ancestors diverged from other insect groups by the Early Permian.  Primitive beetles survived the changing climates of the period and even the end-Permian mass extinction with true beetles appearing and diversifying by the Late Triassic.

Here’s an early beetle from an oddball locality – just what a fossil insect collector is looking for.