Discovery of 60-Million-Year-Old Seeds Unveils Ancient Plant Secrets

Grape fossils in South America show evolution and resilience post-dinosaurs, aiding understanding of current biodiversity shifts.

Researchers have discovered fossil grape seeds that range from 60 to 19 million years old in Colombia, Panama, and Peru. One of these species represents the earliest known example of plants from the grape family in the Western Hemisphere. This discovery, recently described in the journal Nature Plants, shows how the grape family spread in the years following the death of the dinosaurs.

“These are the oldest grapes ever found in this part of the world, and they’re a few million years younger than the oldest ones ever found on the other side of the planet,” says lead author Fabiany Herrera, an assistant curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum in Chicago’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center. “This discovery is important because it shows that after the extinction of the dinosaurs, grapes really started to spread across the world.”