Oldest caddisfly larval cases found, according to a report in Scientific Reports doi:10.1038/srep1921, published online 14 January 2016. Caddisfly larvae live in water and build cone shaped cases from silk and hard materials including sand grains, plant fragments and shell fragments, gathered from the surrounding environment. As such, these structures are more easily preserved as fossils than the larvae themselves.
Scientists in Brazil have found fossilised larval cases in a formation known as the Campáleo outcrop in southern Brazil. This is dated as Early Permian (289-284 million years old), making them the oldest record of caddisflies. The scientists claim “these finds not only push back the fossil record of true caddisflies, but also indicate that their larvae constructed cases at the very beginning of their evolution in marine environments”.
The scientist noted that the shale layer containing the fossils also contained “hexactinellid sponges, brachiopods, gastropods, bivalves, crustaceans, actinopterygian fishes, coelacanth scales, shark teeth, conodont elements, scolecodonts, insects, as well as coprolites and plant fragments”. They concluded: “Such a fossil assemblage, and especially the presence of terrestrial elements such as sporomorphs, plant remains and insects, point to a marine environment close to land”. (Sporomorphs are pollen grains and spores)
Editorial Comment: Feel free to add that this find indicates nothing about the evolution of caddisflies, which were found whole in situ with the sea shells etc. The observations we can make on present day caddisflies constructing cases shows it is a complex behaviour, and no-one has ever observed a non-case-building insect larva develop into one that does build them. These fossils add yet more evidence that caddisflies have always been caddisflies, and their larvae have always made cases, irrespective of how old they are claimed to be.
Once again creation after their kind is a better and simpler explanation of the actual evidence than evolution from some other kind of insect.
Ponder also the description of a “marine environment close to land”. Then ask “what is a good explanation for the mix of land dwelling and marine organisms in the rock layer”. For land and marine organisms to be buried in the same rock layer they had to be mixed up together, not just living beside one another. A better explanation is that the land organisms got washed into the sea, mixed together with marine creatures and mud, and the whole lot rapidly dumped together. For that you need catastrophe, i.e. you need flood, the first of which would have been Noah’s. (Ref. insects, fossilisation, South America)
Evidence News vol 16, No.2
10 February 2016
Creation Research Australia