New species of prehistoric dragonfly discovered in Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park

Paleontologists from McGill University hit pay dirt two summers ago at Dinosaur Provincial Park, discovering a 75-million-year-old dragonfly fossil.

Researchers have uncovered a new species of prehistoric dragonfly, thanks to a fossilized wing found in southern Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park.

The researchers, from Montreal’s McGill University, made the discovery in summer 2023 and wrote an article about it that was published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences on Aug. 1.

André Mueller was the lead author, along with colleague Alexandre Demers-Potvin and Prof. Hans Larsson.

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“We’re pretty excited,” Mueller said. “After a lot of research, it turns out no dragonfly fossil had been found in all of Canada from the age of the dinosaurs, so this is a pretty special.

“When we compare it to relatives of the dragonfly, we can kind of estimate the whole size would have been about the width of the palm of your hand for a full wingspan – so not the biggest fellow. I like to say it’s a nice raptor snack!

“The fact that we found something the size of a fingernail was – truth be told – I don’t know how we found that,” he added. “We were pretty lucky. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

Mueller says he and a team of about 20 students took a trip back to Dinosaur Provincial Park for the recent dig season, and returned to the same spot where they discovered the dragonfly fossil in the hopes of finding more 75-million-year-old insects and leaves.

“Fossils are really cool, but if we can’t share them with the world, they’re just rocks sitting in a drawer, or rocks in the ground,” he said.

“Sharing this, and having this outreach, and being able to share these finds with the world and really help people understand what this world looked like 75 million years ago – it helps build this picture as to the world we’re living in, but also where a lot of the animals and life that we see today originally came from.”

The team collected several specimens that need further study, but their dragonfly fossil is called Cordualadensa acorni.

They chose “acorni” to honour of John Acorn, an entomologist and science communicator at the University of Alberta who has promoted the natural history of Alberta for decades, including with the TV show Acorn, the Nature Nut.