Look! This giant, hairy cicada lived with the dinosaurs and was terrified of birds

When dinosaurs thundered across the land, a giant, cicada-like beetle called Palaeontinidae flew through the air and fed on tree sap. But something disrupted its peaceful existence — and prompted the evolution of wings that could quickly dart it away, according to a new paper published this week.

Large, fat and somewhat hairy, these gigantic insects lived an idyllic life munching on the sticky substance in woody trees, plants that had only just appeared on the world stage. Palaeontinidae could not make large sounds like modern crickets. But they were big, with a wingspan half a foot wide. Despite their uncanny size, something has pushed these enormous insects to adapt.

“Why would they suddenly want to develop fast flights? The answer seems to be the air,” Edmund Jarzembowskiinsect paleontologist and co-author of a new one paper published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, says Inverse.

Danger is a great motivator. When the research team looked at the beetle fossils, they developed an understanding of the aerial dynamics these giant crickets were capable of. They found “remarkable” improvements since the family tree of the Palaeontinidae first appeared at the end of the Permian, the time just before the dawn of the dinosaurs. As dinosaurs evolved during the Triassic and Jurassic, Palaeontinidae evolved too, with faster flight speed and improved maneuverability.

Their need for speed overlaps with the emergence of birds. For paleontologists, this is unlikely to be a coincidence.

“I think they were trying to stay alive,” Jarzembowski said. The Palaeontinidae were a tasty “flying wedge” packed with protein and muscle. These creatures went out at the sides and had wings that Jarzembowski calls “amazing.” At the peak of their evolution, the forewings of the Palaeontinidae pointed forward and joined the hindwings to fly from one point to another through the air. “They can definitely go a step further.”

Insects were the first animals with powered flight on Earth, Jarzembowski says. Long before dinosaurs, giant dragonflies and other enormous insects carved out a niche. But it was during the dinosaur age, the Mesozoic, that flying predators were first encountered.

“We’ve had a slow-motion arms race for 160 million years,” says Jarzembowski, which began in the Triassic and peaked as the Jurassic period turned into the final geological chapter of the dinosaurs, known as the Cretaceous. It’s a great survival story, he says. “I mean, look how long they survived before they went extinct out there.”

When the first birds bloomed, they were hungry. They probably didn’t share the food of the giant crickets either. “I don’t know of any bird that depends on tree sap,” Jarzembowski says. The tree liquid is not as nutritious, he adds. “You have to drink gallons of the stuff.”

Birds would have had a harder time catching the later versions of the giant crickets, when the insect species evolved anteromotor flight. Here the beetle’s movement is mainly driven by the forewings. The rear wings were mechanically linked to it and flapped in synchrony with the front pair.

But like many animals from that era, they are extinct, and scientists currently don’t understand why. Jarzembowski hopes to learn more about these long-lost insects if a fossil of their larva emerges one day. New computer models could put their math to the test and recreate the way the wings would actually have flown.

Jarzembowski’s great wish is to get a call that they did not die along with the dinosaurs. If they managed to survive the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, it would add significantly to the story of their hardiness. But they nevertheless managed to survive on Earth for 160 million years, a good record. In their wake, Jarzembowski says these giant insects “have made us all wonder and admire.”