Scientists have managed to reconstruct the habitat of the common ancestor of butterflies and the plants that they ate. This was reported by the Florida Museum of Natural History.
About 100 million years ago, a group of moths began flying during the day instead of night, using the nectar-rich flowers for food. All modern butterflies have their origins in this group of insects, and it was long believed that this was after the dinosaurs died out under the pressure of bats 66 million years ago. But recent research has refuted this, and therefore scientists are trying to find out where and how diurnal butterflies originated.
To find out, Akito Kawahara and colleagues collected DNA from over 2,000 species representing all butterfly families and 92% of genera. These data were supported by the analysis of 11 known moth fossils to explain the extinct species. It turns out that butterflies originated somewhere in the Central and Western parts of North America. At that time, North America was bisected by a wide sea route that divided the continent, and modern Mexico was connected to the United States, Canada, and Russia. North and South America have not yet converged through the Isthmus of Panama, but it was not difficult for the butterflies to cross the strait between them. Later, the insects moved to Asia via the Bering Isthmus, from where they spread to Africa and Southeast Asia. The moths then lingered in Western Asia until 45 million years ago and eventually migrated to Europe. The reasons for this are not clear, but this is why there are very few butterfly species living in Europe today.
Also, the analysis showed that the ancestors of butterflies from almost every family specialized in extracting nectar from leguminous plants. The last common ancestor of all butterflies also fed on legumes.
Formerly paleontologists saidwhere live “bagels” live obama 550 million years old.