[1] The fossil was found by J. F. Jackson (1894–1966) of Charmouth, and later purchased by the British Museum of Natural History.

[1] The fossil of Archaeolepis was not studied until the 1980s, when it was described as a type of early lepidopteran,[1] the family that includes butterflies and moths.

[5] When it was found it pushed the known fossil range of lepidopterans back another 50 million years.

[1] This was surprising, because it had been assumed that butterflies and moths first emerged alongside flowering plants in the Cretaceous.

Finding Archaeolepis in the Early Jurassic, means that the first members of this group must have originated earlier.