Researchers have strike a brand new metal money of sawfly from an amazingly save dodo incur in Australia . This is a great find – but we need to remember that sawflies are not fly at all .

The young species is long extinct but would have been flying around what is now Australia in theMiocene Period . It is believe that thesawflyis between 11 and 16 million years older and is the first of its kind discovered in Australia . It was first found by a team in 2018 on McGraths Flat , an oxbow lake deposit in New South Wales .

sawfly are actually a type ofwasp , however , they look a little strange and do not own the “ wasp waist ” see in other more unwashed members of the wasp family . rather , sawfly have check - likeovipositorsthat are used to lay orchis .

The new specie has been namedBaladi warru . " Baladi " think of " look " and " warru " intend " wasp " in the nomenclature of the Wiradjuri – the largest Aboriginal group in New South Wales . The name was chosen with the favorable reception of the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council , to honor the Traditional Owners of the land where the fogy was attain .

By looking closely at the veins running through the wings of the dodo , as well as a part of the head called the clypeus , the squad were capable to determine that it was a Modern species that belong to the subfamily Perginae and is closely relate to the Australian generaCerealcesandXyloperga , which hold specie survive today .

By comparing the fresh metal money to other living taxa and do DNA analytic thinking , the team work out how tight bear on the new dodo is to today ’s sawfly species .

“ We looked at the fossil and its sound structure and then put this info together with molecular and morphological datum from a all-inclusive sample of current sawfly species . This helped us trace the fogy ’s placement in the sawfly Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree of life sentence , ” said CSIRO enquiry scientist Dr Juanita Rodriguez in astatement .

The long time of the fogy even help the scientist act upon out when the entire sawfly lineage was give .

“ We used the fogey ’s long time and its arrangement to establish that sawflies rise in the Cretaceous Period , around 100 million years ago , which means their ancient ancestor live inGondwana . When this supercontinent split up , sawflies end up distributed in Australia and South America , " Rodriguez summate .

There were even pollen caryopsis on top of the sawfly ' heads and mouthparts , this is incredibly strange as the preservation of the dodo is so good that the researcher can say what the adult sawfly was feed on . The pollen belongs to a flora calledQuintiniapollis psilatospora . The squad think the larva would have fed on toxic plants called Myrtaceae , but had medical specialist mouthparts or other digestive processes to protect them from the toxic oils within the plants ' structures .

“ They eat the leaves of Myrtaceae – a family of woody plants that include eucalypts – because they have mouthparts with which they can separate toxic rock oil or a chemical detoxification system inside their gut when course on myrtaceous leave . This start the larva , sometimes called spitfire , to use the oil colour as a defensive weapon , ” said University of Canberra palaeontologist and CSIRO natter scientist , Dr Michael Frese .

Even though this sawfly species is not extant , the entropy put up by the fossil can help today ’s sawfly species and even other pollinating insects .

“ Although this finical metal money , Baladi warru , has been extinct for millions of eld , it provides data on native pollinator so we can sympathize their evolution and impact in the present tense , ” Frese added .

The paper is publish inSystematic Entomology .