Indianapolis - A tiny fossil discovered in the 1920s and then largely ignored has been identified as the oldest known insect, scientists report.
The discovery pushes back the origins of Earth's most prolific life form some 20 million years.
The new analysis of the 400-million-year-old specimen also suggests that it may have had wings, hinting that winged insects - and insects in general - arose much earlier than had been presumed.
Encased in translucent rock called chert, the fossil is about an eighth of an inch square and reveals a pair of triangular jaws that are strikingly similar to those found only in winged insects, said David Grimaldi, curator of entomology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
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