Description

Late Triassic
Aranbanga Volcanic Group
Windera Creek, Near Murgon, Queensland, Australia
4mm beetle on 31mm slab.

Insect. Arthropod. Coleoptera.

Of the modern insect orders beetles are truly ancient.  Their ancestors diverged from other insect groups in the Early Permian and perhaps as early as the Pennsylvanian.  They survived the end-Permian mass extinction with true beetles appearing and diversifying by the Late Triassic.

Here’s an odd beetle specimen from an area better known for Eocene vertebrate fossils. It seems to have lost its head somewhere in time.

Old bug.
Look at my life.
I’m a lot like you were.