Fossils belonging to a bizarre blood-sucking parasite have been discovered in China.
In a study published in Open Access journal eLife, an international team of scientists found evidence of an aquatic fly larva from the mid-Jurassic era that they took from three perfectly-preserved fossils.
The quiyia jurassica – ‘quiyia’ means ‘bizarre’ in Chinese – swam the freshwater lakes of Inner Mongolia about 165 million years ago.
The 2cm-long creature’s entire body consisted of an enormous sucking plate that would allow it to stick to giant salamanders and suck their blood.
Read the full coverage from the Metro.
