New sawfly species identified from ancient Australian fossil

CANBERRA, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) — Scientists have identified a new species of extinct sawfly from an ancient fossil in Australian-first research.
National science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) on Friday announced that a team of researchers described the new species of sawfly from a well-preserved fossil dating back between 11 and 16 million years.
The fossil, which was found by a team of paleontologists in the state of New South Wales in 2018, was the first of its kind discovered in Australia and the second discovered in the world.
Researchers from the CSIRO, University of Canberra, Australian Museum and Queensland Museum were able to analyze the sawfly’s wing venation and other preserved features to identify it as a new species.
The new species has been named Baladi warru, meaning saw wasp in the language of the Aboriginal people in the area where the fossil was found.
Sawflies are a type of insect belonging to the order hymenoptera, which also comprises wasps, bees and ants.
The team said that the discovery of the new species could help track the evolution and distribution of sawflies.
“In particular, this find has helped us in understanding the incredible ability of sawflies to feed on toxic plants,” Micheal Frese, the University of Canberra paleontologist who found the fossil, said in a media release.
“They eat the leaves of Myrtaceae — a family of woody plants that includes eucalypts — because they have mouthparts with which they can separate toxic oils or a chemical detoxification system inside their gut when feeding on myrtaceous leaves. This enables the larvae, sometimes called spitfires, to use the oils as a defensive weapon,” he said.
He said that in the bigger picture the identification of the species is helping researchers understand the current distribution of sawflies across Australia and the Americas.
CSIRO research scientist Juanita Rodriguez said that researchers used the fossil’s age and its placement to establish that sawflies originated around 100 million years ago in the Cretaceous Period and that they ended up distributed in Australia and the Americas when the supercontinent Gondwana split up. ■