Scientists have identified the first known dragonfly fossil from Canada’s dinosaur-aged rocks: a partial wing found in 2023 at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. The Late Cretaceous fossil represents a new species, Cordualadensa acorni, and a new family, Cordualadensidae. It is not the first dragonfly fossil ever found in Canada; the distinction is that this specimen comes from the Mesozoic, the era of the dinosaurs.
What was found—and where?
Students discovered the fossil while cracking rocks during a vertebrate paleontology field course at Dinosaur Provincial Park. They were working in an area where leaf fossils had been found, not specifically searching for insects. Lead author André Mueller said the team was surprised to uncover a partial wing.
The specimen came from the Campanian-age Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta. McGill University describes the formation as 75 million years old. The finding was reported by McGill on August 14, 2025, and the formal study by André S. Mueller, Alexandre V. Demers-Potvin, and Hans C.E. Larsson appeared in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
Why is it a first?
The study identifies the wing as the oldest known North American member of Cavilabiata, a group of dragonflies, and the only Mesozoic dragonfly known from Canada. “First” therefore refers specifically to a dragonfly from Canada’s dinosaur-aged rocks—not to the first Canadian dragonfly fossil of any age. Older Canadian dragonfly fossils are known from the Eocene Okanagan Highlands.
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What did scientists name it?
The researchers named the species Cordualadensa acorni and established the family Cordualadensidae. The species name honors John Acorn, a University of Alberta lecturer, entomologist, and science communicator. The specimen is an impression of part of a wing, not a complete insect body.
What might the wing reveal about the dragonfly?
Hans Larsson interpreted the wing anatomy as evidence that the species was adapted for gliding. He linked that interpretation to migratory dragonflies today, but the fossil cannot directly show how the extinct insect behaved. The team also presents the fossil as helping fill a roughly 30-million-year gap in dragonfly evolutionary history; the study describes it as a missing link in the transition from Early Cretaceous Cavilabiata to living families.
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What does the discovery mean for other fossils at the site?
The study says the wing confirms that insect impression fossils can be preserved in the Dinosaur Park Formation. That makes the find relevant beyond one new species: insect diversity in the formation may be under-recorded because fossil hunters have not found or recognized all the evidence preserved there. As McGill postdoctoral fellow Alexandre Demers-Potvin put it, the diversity of insect life during this period may have been greater than previously thought.
McGill reports that McGill undergraduate Alex Anderson created an artistic reconstruction of the animal. The reconstruction is an illustration, while the physical evidence described in the study is the partial wing impression.
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Sources
- McGill University, “McGill team discovers Canada’s first dinosaur-era dragonfly fossil,” August 14, 2025.
- André S. Mueller, Alexandre V. Demers-Potvin, and Hans C.E. Larsson, “New family of fossil dragonfly (Odonata, Cavilabiata) from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Dinosaur Park Formation, Alberta, Canada,” Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, volume 62, issue 8 (2025), DOI: 10.1139/cjes-2024-0162.
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