16 Paleontology of North America
Added from Discipline submissions.
Monday, 9 March 2026
1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
RCC, 106
Micro-Scale Preservation of Setae on Mazon Creek’s “Dasyleptus” sp.
Paper number: 16-10
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 4:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Authors
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Andrew YoungThe David and Sandra Douglass Collection, Evanston, Illinois
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Victoria McCoyUniversity of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Abstract
The Mazon Creek fossil site is a famous Late Pennsylvanian lagerstätte in northeastern Illinois that hosts incredible preservation of unique and often enigmatic soft-bodied animals, representing a wide range of taxonomic diversity within a paleo-equatorial delta environment. Despite well-preserved soft tissues, it is generally accepted that Mazon Creek’s unique siderite concretion preservation style does not typically enable preservation of micro-scale features. Earlier micro-scale analysis of a specimen of the wingless insect “Dasyleptus” sp. revealed crude preservation of setae sockets present on abdominal cuticle, as well as roughly lineated carbon smears that were tentatively interpreted as heavily altered setae on and around the ovipositor. In a separate sample from The David and Sandra Douglass Collection, ethanol-enhanced light microscopy has revealed well-preserved setae sockets on the abdomen as well as clearly defined setae present on both the abdomen and caudal filament. Though taxonomic, evolutionary, and ecologic implications of these preserved setae are still being considered, taphonomically the preservation of these features is promising for further micro-scale preservation in Mazon Creek fossils and suggests that micro-scale analysis of these specimens could yield new avenues of research.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 1
doi: 10.1130/abs/2026SE-411678
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