No real life scientist has ever even found a fossilized mosquito bloated with blood. In fact, the odds of that happening are so infinitesimal, and the set of circumstances that would have to occur is so peculiar, that such a find was thought to be as good as impossible.
But a new paper published this week clarifies that finding a blood-filled mosquito is not, in fact, impossible – it’s just improbable. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have described the first ever fossil to be found with a blood meal inside its abdomen. The 46-million-year-old mosquito contains heme, a chemical compound found in hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells, and it is the first conclusive, direct evidence of blood feeding in ancient insects.
Read the full, original story here: 46-million-year-old mosquito filled with blood is a scientific first
