Flower-associated Brachycera flies as fossil evidence for Jurassic angiosperm origins.

Pollinating insects played a decisive role in the origin and early evolution of the angiosperms. Pollinating orthorrhaphous Brachycera fossils (including Palaepangonius eupterus (Tabanidae: Pangoniinae), Protapiocera megista (Protapioceridae) and Florinemestrius pulcherrimus and Protonemestrius jurassicus (Nemestrinidae) [see Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica, 23: 65 (1998)]) collected from Late Jurassic rocks in Liaoning Province, China, provided evidence for a pre-Cretaceous origin of angiosperms. Functional morphology and comparison with modern confamilial taxa show that the orthorrhaphous Brachycera were some of the most ancient pollinators. These data thus imply that angiosperms originated during the Late Jurassic and were represented by at least 2 floral types. [See also commentary by C.C. Labandeira (1998) Science, 280: 57-59 (1998)].