Blood-sucking insects preserved in amber for millions of years were carrying MALARIA: Deadly disease may have wiped out some species of prehistoric animal
- Scientists analysed ancient blood-sucking insects from five regions worldwide
- They have remained perfectly preserved for between 15 and 100 million years
- Microorganisms that cause a variety of modern illnesses were discovered
Insects preserved in amber for millions of years reveal that blood-sucking bugs were spreading malaria as far back as the Jurassic era.
The disease, which kills an estimated one million people per year, may have wiped out some species of prehistoric animal, say scientists.
Microorganisms that cause a variety of modern illnesses were discovered during a study of perfectly preserved parasitic insects and ticks.
Mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies, ticks and biting midges are rarely found in amber, and so evidence of the diseases they carried is extremely rare.
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Pictured is a black fly preserved in amber. Researchers analysed insects and ticks encased in the Dominican, Mexican, Baltic, Canadian and Burmese amber that dated to between 15 million and 100 million years ago
Amber discovered in five different regions around the world contained bloodsuckers carrying preserved pathogens and parasites.
The insects and ticks encased in the Dominican, Mexican, Baltic, Canadian and Burmese amber dated to between 15 million and 100 million years ago.
Scientists at Oregon State University found evidence of microorganisms that cause Lyme disease, malaria, lupus, sleeping sickness and several other modern illnesses.
Study coauthor Professor George Poinar said: 'It's likely that primitive mosquitoes and other arthropod vectors were present back in the Jurassic and were even transmitting pathogens at that period.
'This would have resulted in widely dispersed diseases, many of which were probably fatal to vertebrates when they first appeared.'
Among the insects studied were mosquitoes, sand flies, biting midges, bat flies, black flies, fleas, kissing bugs and ticks.
Mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies, ticks and biting midges are rarely found in amber, and so evidence of the diseases they carried is extremely rare. Pictured is a flea analysed as part of the study
Professor Poinar believes the microorganisms first infected blood-sucking insects.
They later adapted to hop between the bugs and the vertebrate mammals that they preyed upon.
'Numerous malaria species parasitise vertebrates today,' Professor Poinar said.
'We now know that over the past 100 million years, malaria was being spread by mosquitoes, biting midges, bat flies and ticks.'
The study was published in the journal Historical Biology.
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