Competition for insect attention probably facilitated the relatively rapid success and diversification of the flowering plants, "lead to the development of many different size, shapes, colors and fragrances of flowers we see today,” including the production of nectar to attract hungry bugs. Thanks to pollinating insects, flowering plants had tremendous advantages over plants that spread pollen only by wind, spurring the explosion of angiosperms, according to Illinois Extension at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Also found encased in amber, this insect shared some traits with modern bees, such as hind legs laden with pollen, and some traits with wasps, such as its wing vein features. (Image credit: NIGPAS)Īnd in a 2020 paper published in the journal BioOne, scientists reported on the oldest bee found bearing pollen, the 100 million-year-old Discoscapa apicula. The fossilized Florigerminis jurassica plant with a defined stem, bulbous fruit and fossilized flower bud (marked by the white arrow). The beetle sports several body parts specialized for feeding on flowers, including pollen-feeding mouthparts, and the pollen grains have traits, like clumping characteristics, associated with insect pollination, the researchers reported. In 2019, scientists reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the first direct fossil evidence of insect pollination in the Cretaceous: a tumbling flower beetle, Angimordella burmitina, preserved in amber since the mid-Cretaceous, 99 million years ago, and covered with pollen grains. The mid-Cretaceous saw abundant populations of both insects and flowering plants, and recent finds finally caught Cretaceous-era insect pollinators frozen in the act. This is frequently cited as an example of co-evolution, according to the Washington Native Plant Society. Since Darwin, scientists have thought that pollinating insects, such as bees and wasps, played a key role in the Cretaceous explosion of flowering plants, according to recent and foundational research.
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