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Amphibious stem-insect sheds light on colonization of land

Research Evolutionary Paleontology

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TL;DR - A fossil restudy using cross-polarized light imaging and phylogenetic reconstruction identifies Chosha praecursor as a probable early-diverging insect. The finding helps narrow the longstanding “hexapod gap” in the fossil record and clarify how insects colonized land.

  • The work re-examines a difficult fossil with cross-polarized light imaging.
  • Phylogenetic reconstruction places Chosha praecursor near the early divergence of insects.
  • Its amphibious characteristics may illuminate the transition of hexapods from aquatic to terrestrial environments.
  • The fossil provides evidence within a poorly documented interval of early hexapod evolution.

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Amphibious stem-insect sheds light on colonization of land

Nature Erik Tihelka, Carlos Vásquez, Michael S. Engel, Frederick R. Schram, Jesus Lozano-Fernandez, Chenyang Cai 2026-08-26 doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10961-2
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Providers: Hugging Face · N/A OpenAlex · Citations 0 Publisher · N/A Semantic Scholar · N/A X · N/A Fetched 2026-09-25 14:27:28.273877 UTC

TL;DR - A fossil restudy using cross-polarized light imaging and phylogenetic reconstruction identifies Chosha praecursor as a probable early-diverging insect. The finding helps narrow the longstanding “hexapod gap” in the fossil record and clarify how insects colonized land.

  • The work re-examines a difficult fossil with cross-polarized light imaging.
  • Phylogenetic reconstruction places Chosha praecursor near the early divergence of insects.
  • Its amphibious characteristics may illuminate the transition of hexapods from aquatic to terrestrial environments.
  • The fossil provides evidence within a poorly documented interval of early hexapod evolution.
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