Scientists have discovered a “bizarre” parasite from the Jurassic era that really sucked.
An international team of researchers recently described this 165-million-year-old fossilized fly larvae that they found in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northeastern China once studded with volcanoes and freshwater lakes. They named the species Qiyia jurassica (“Qiyia” is derived from the Chinese word for “strange”), and with good reason: Its unusual features include an upper abdomen that had been converted into a giant sucker, which it used to slurp the blood of local salamanders.
Read the full coverage of this study in National Geographic.
