Unique blood-filled 46-mln-year-old mosquito fossil found in Montana

Johannesburg – US scientists have revealed that they have discovered an extremely rare 46-million-year-old mosquito fossil with traces of dried blood in its engorged abdomen in a Montana riverbed.

Dale Greenwalt, a retired biochemist who volunteers at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, said that the mosquito fossil was one of its kind in the world, News24 reported.

Scientists have yet to determine what creature the blood came from since DNA cannot be extracted from a fossil that old.

Greenwalt speculated that the blood might have been from a bird, as the prehistoric mosquito looks similar to a modern one from the genus Culicidae, which likes to feed on birds as well.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.