Grape seeds are much harder than the seeds of many other fruits, and therefore are more likely to be preserved as fossils. But only recently did a group of paleontologists find fossilized grape seeds at four different sites in Central and South America that shed light on the evolution of the grape family, the Vitaceae, after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Two species discovered in Panama were named for staff at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)in a paper by Fabiany Herrera, assistant curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum in Chicago’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center and former intern in STRI staff scientist, Carlos Jaramillo’s lab—and colleagues.

Cissus correae, discovered in the Gaillard Cut of the Panama Canal during the recent canal expansion project, was named in honor of Mireya Correa (1940-2022), botany professor at the University of Panama and staff scientist at STRI “for her many botanical contributions and her work on the flora of Panama.” This specimen was estimated to be 19 to 18.5 million years old.

Leea mcmillanae, discovered on Panama’s Azuero Peninsula, was named in honor of Jennifer McMillan, STRI Associate Director for Advancement, for her continuous support of paleontological research in the new world tropics. The fossil seed was probably about 34 million years old.

The other species were named as follows: Lithouva susmanii, for Arthur T. Sussman, who furthered paleobotanical research in South America and Ampelocissus wenae, for Jun Wen, expert on the evolution of the grape family.

A press release from the Field Museum emphasizes the age of nine species of plants in the grape family, the Vitaceae, which appeared on Earth beginning at about the same time as the dinosaurs became extinct. These specimens represent the oldest species of grapes in the Western Hemisphere. The first members of this plant family were identified based on 66 million-year-old fossils from India. Monica Carvahlo, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and former Tupper Post-Doctoral fellow at STRI, discovered the oldest species in this group, Lithouva susmanii, in Cundinamarca, Colombia, a specimen estimated to be 60-58 million years old.

Today there are about 950 species of grapes in the world, and about 100 of those are native to the American tropics. The team suggests that the cataclysmic events that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, or the absence of the dinosaurs themselves changed tropical forests in a way that gave rise to grapes and many other species of flowering plants. Because grapes have very hard seeds, they are better preserved in the fossil record than many other fruit species.

The study was authored by Fabiany Herrera (Field Museum), Mónica Carvalho (University of Michigan), Gregory Stull (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution), Carlos Jarramillo (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute), and Steven Manchester (Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida).