Detailed Cretaceous Fossil Cricket

Cricket Insect Fossil

Insects Order Ortyhoptera, Family Gryllidae

Geological Time: Lower Cretaceous, Late Aptian-Cenomanian (108-92 million years ago)

Size (25.4 mm = 1 inch): Cricket fossil is 20 mm (with limbs) Matrix: 100 mm by 100 mm

Fossil Site: Crato Formation, Nova Olinda Member, Ceara, Brazil

Code: BI069

Price: $75.00

Description: The Araripe Basin of Brazil is home to a fantastic array of exquisitely-detailed Early Cretaceous fossils, some of which have been preserved in three dimensions. While the entire formation has until the last decade or so been termed the Santana Formation, David Martill has separated out the slightly older insect-bearing strata as the Nova Olinda Member of the Crato Formation. Quarrying operations for the purposes of obtaining paving stones exposes the remarkable insect fauna in much the same way that quarrying for lithographic limestone in Solnhofen has afforded a panoply of wonderfully-preserved Jurassic fossils in Germany. In addition to the many orders of insects, spiders, scorpions, decapod crustaceans, and many plants have been found. Interestingly, to date no pterosaurs or terrestrial vertebrates have been found, in stark contrast to the overlying Santana Formation deposits. This fine example shows a female cricket in dorsal view. It is easy to determine that this one is a female by the faint traces of an ovipositor that the female used to place its eggs in the ground for incubation. The first crickets evolved during the Triassic.