Before They Had Six Legs, the First Insects Had as Many as 24
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Before They Had Six Legs, the First Insects Had as Many as 24

ZAP Notícias28 August 2026 at 11:00

Before they had six legs, the first insects had as many as 24. This is the conclusion of a team of paleontologists after reexamining four fossils from Texas, Illinois, and Scotland. The insect in question, called Chosha praecursor, lived 324 million years ago and had three pairs of walking legs on the thorax, in addition to nine pairs of appendages on the abdomen.

In a new study published this Wednesday in Nature, scientists reexamined a fossil found in the Tesnus Formation in western Texas. This formation consists of sediments deposited in a subaquatic environment approximately 324 million years ago.

Initially, the specimen was identified as a juvenile crustacean. However, the researchers concluded it was an insect, revealing that the first insects had many more appendages than current ones, suggesting a gradual evolution toward the six-legged configuration we know today.

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