Archaeolepis mane is amongst the earliest undisputed lepidopteran fossils. It dates from the Lower Jurassic (ca ). It was found in the Charmouth Mudstone Formation, Dorset, United Kingdom.
~2 min read
Archaeolepis mane is amongst the earliest undisputed lepidopteran fossils. It dates from the Lower Jurassic (ca ). It was found in the Charmouth Mudstone Formation, Dorset, United Kingdom.
== Etymology == Archaeolepis means 'ancient scale', referring to the antiquity of the specimen, and the scales (modified and flattened hairs characteristic of butterflies and moths) that identify it as a lepidopteran. The species name, A. mane means 'dawn', further emphasising that it is the earliest known member of this group.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).