Chosha

Chosha
Temporal range: Late Mississipian, 324 Ma
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Clade: Allotriocarida
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Genus: †Chosha
Tihelka et al., 2026
Species:
†C. praecursor
Binomial name
†Chosha praecursor
Tihelka et al., 2026

Chosha is an extinct genus of stem-group insect known from a single fossil specimen from the Tesnus Formation of Texas.

Etymology

From ch′osh, a Navajo word for insect, "in reference to the Navajo creation myth, wherein the first landmass was occupied by ancient insect-like creatures whose descendants populated the Earth".

Fossil history

The fossil (catalogue number SDNHM 28852) had been found in 1985 by Emerson and Schram and considered a juvenile specimen of the remipedian Tesnusocaris, an interpretation put into doubt in 2011.

Reinterpretation as an insect

Paleoentomologist Erik Tihelka noticed a drawing of the fossil in an old Russian textbook and decided to re-analyze the specimen. In 2026, Tihelka and coworkers published a redescription of the fossil as a stem-insect. Features consistent with Hexapoda are the uniramous antennae, a thorax with three segments and an abdomen with 11, and the legs consisting of six podites. The specimen is a female as shown by the presence of an ovipositor, another feature unique to insects. The presence of gills and abdominal paddle-like appendages suggest a semiaquatic way of life.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Tihelka, Erik; Vásquez, Carlos; Engel, Michael S.; Schram, Frederick R.; Lozano-Fernandez, Jesus; Cai, Chenyang (2026). "Amphibious stem-insect sheds light on colonization of land". Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10961-2. PMID 42649295.
  2. ↑ Neiber, Marco T.; Hartke, Tamara R.; Stemme, Torben; Bergmann, Alexandra; Rust, Jes; Iliffe, Thomas M.; Koenemann, Stefan (2011). "Global Biodiversity and Phylogenetic Evaluation of Remipedia (Crustacea)". PLOS ONE. 6 (5) e19627. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019627. PMC 3098257. PMID 21625553.
  3. ↑ "The first insects had way more than six legs". Science. 2026. doi:10.1126/science.zh7wzvx.