Student Finds Canada's First Dinosaur-Era Dragonfly

The rock wasn't supposed to hold a dragonfly. But when a McGill University student split open a chunk of Alberta sedimentary rock during a field course, a delicate wing outline emerged where only plant fossils were expected.

That moment in Dinosaur Provincial Park just rewrote Canadian paleontology. The fossil is now confirmed as the first dinosaur-aged dragonfly ever found in Canada, and it's so different from any known species that researchers had to create a new insect family to contain it.

The specimen dates back 75 million years, to a time when tyrannosaurs stalked the wetlands that would become Alberta's badlands. The formation has produced more than 350 dinosaur specimens and over 150 complete skeletons from at least 44 species. But before this discovery, scientists had found exactly one insect fossil in those same layers: a microscopic aphid trapped in amber.

Professor Hans Larsson, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at McGill's Redpath Museum, was leading the field team when the student made the find. "This specimen provides insight into what life was like in Canada 75 million years ago, adding an important new missing piece of the ecological puzzle," he said.

The wing survived because it settled into fine sediment that captured its shape before decay could erase it. Impression fossils like this are fragile and easily missed, which explains why insects have stayed invisible at a site paleontologists have searched for over a century.

When researchers examined the wing closely, they found something unexpected. The vein pattern showed adaptations for gliding flight, a trait linked to modern migratory dragonflies. "The wing anatomy tells us this species was adapted for gliding, possibly a key to their success," Larsson explained.

The species was named Cordualadensa acorni, honoring University of Alberta entomologist John Acorn. Its wingspan stretched roughly the width of a human palm. In the Late Cretaceous landscape, it would have skimmed across rivers and wetlands, likely ending up as prey for small feathered dinosaurs.

The Ripple Effect

This tiny wing is opening doors scientists didn't know existed. Alexandre Demers-Potvin, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill and study co-author, said the team has now started finding more insect fossils by expanding where and how they search. The discovery fills a 30-million-year gap in dragonfly fossil records and suggests that similar evidence may already be sitting in museum drawers, unidentified because no one was looking.

The find shifts how researchers approach a site long defined by its giant inhabitants. If impression fossils can preserve insect anatomy in formations once thought barren of arthropod life, the ecological picture of this world-famous dinosaur site is far richer than anyone imagined.

The small things were there all along, and the evidence is finally surfacing.