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Scientists have uncovered a bizarre 165 million-year-old fossil with a gigantic sucking plate attached to its body.

An international team recently discovered the spectacular fly larva fossil in the freshwater lakes of present-day Inner Mongolia, China.

In this habitat, the parasite would crawl onto passing salamanders, attach itself with its sucking plate, and penetrate the thin skin of the amphibians in order to suck blood.

Thanks to the fine-grained mudstone, the details of the 0.7in (2cm) long parasite Qiyia jurassica (pictured) are exceptionally preserved. The head was tiny in comparison to the body and was tube-shaped. The mid-body was completely transformed into a sucking plate while its abdomen had caterpillar-like legs

The spectacular fly larva, which has received the scientific name of 'Qiyia jurassica', was an unexpected find.

'Qiyia' in Chinese means 'bizarre'; 'jurassica' refers to the Jurassic period to which the fossils belong. To date no insect is known that has such a huge sucking plate.

Scientists believe the parasite, a fly larva around 0.7-inches (2cm) long, had undergone extreme changes over the course of evolution.

For instance, the head was tiny in comparison to the body and was tube-shaped with piercer-like mouthparts at the front.

Scientists recently discovered the spectacular parasite fossil in the freshwater lakes of present-day Inner Mongolia, China. In this fresh water habitat, the parasite would crawl onto passing salamanders, attach itself with its sucking plate, and penetrate the thin skin of the amphibians in order to suck blood

The mid-body was completely transformed underneath into a gigantic sucking plate while its abdomen had caterpillar-like legs.

'The parasite lived the life of Reilly', said Professor Jes Rust from the Steinmann Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Palaeontology of the University of Bonn.

This is because there were many salamanders in the lakes, as fossil finds at the same location near Ningcheng in Inner Mongoliaave shown.

'There scientists had also found around 300,000 diverse and exceptionally preserved fossil insects', reports scientist Dr Bo Wang, who is researching in palaeontology at the University of Bonn.

'No insect exists today with a comparable body shape', said Dr Bo Wang.

That the bizarre larva from the Jurassic has remained so well-preserved to the present day is partly due to the fine-grained mudstone in which the animals were embedded.

'The finer the sediment, the better the details are reproduced in the fossils', explained Dr Torsten Wappler of the Steinmann-Institut of the University of Bonn. 

This reconstruction shows how scientists think the fly larvae attached itself to the skin of the salamander. 'No insect exists today with a comparable body shape', said Dr Bo Wang

Astonishingly, no fossil fish are found in the freshwater lakes of this Jurassic epoch in China.

'On the other hand, there are almost unlimited finds of fossilised salamanders, which were found by the thousand', says Dr Bo Wang.

This unusual ecology could explain why the bizarre parasites survived in the lakes: fish are predators of fly larvae and usually keep them in check.

'The extreme adaptations in the design of Qiyia jurassica show the extent to which organisms can specialise in the course of evolution', Professor Rust said.

A team of German and Chinese researchers recently discovered the spectacular parasite fossil in the freshwater lakes of present-day Inner Mongolia, China

As unpleasant as the parasites were for the salamanders, their deaths were not caused by the fly larvae.

'A parasite only sometimes kills its host when it has achieved its goal, for example, reproduction or feeding ', Dr Wappler explained.

If Qiyia jurassica had passed through the larval stage, it would have grown into an adult insect after completing metamorphosis.

However, the scientists don't yet have enough information to speculate as to what the adult would have looked like, and how it might have lived.