Blood-Filled 46 Million Year Old Mosquito Fossil Discovered in Montana

An extremely rare, 46-million year old fossil of a mosquito with traces of dried blood in its engorged abdomen has now been discovered by a team of scientists in Montana.

Dale Greenwalt, a retired biochemist who volunteers at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, said that the mosquito fossil was one of its kind in the world, News24 reported.

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Scientists have yet to determine what creature the blood came from since DNA cannot be extracted from a fossil that old.

Greenwalt speculated that the blood might have been from a bird, as the prehistoric mosquito looks similar to a modern one from the genus Culicidae, which likes to feed on birds as well.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Source-ANI

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