A locust witness of a trans-oceanic Oligocene migration between Arabia and Iran (Orthoptera: Acrididae)

Abstract

Fossil insects are very rarely found in sediments of deep marine origin. Nevertheless they can be of great interest to trace past events such as trans-oceanic migrations. Here we document the first fossil insects from Iran, viz. several alate ants dead during mating swarms and a migratory locust, found in the pelagic Oligocene sediments of the Zagros Mountains. This locust represents the first putative indication of insect migrations between the Arabian-African and Asiatic continents through the Parathetys, probably in relation with the development of open grassland biotas in these areas.

Keywords:

• Insecta
• Acrididae
• Formicidae
• putative migration
• Oligocene
• Parathetys
• Iran

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Pr Bo Wang and an anonymous referee for their very useful comments on the first version of the paper. MMA thanks Erfan Khosravi (University of Tehran) and Borzu Asgari (Islamic Azad University, Masjed Soleiman) for their support during the field work.