Photomicrographs of the two new species of ancient gall mites in 230-million-year-old amber droplets from northeastern Italy. The gall mites were named: Triasacarus fedelei, left, and Ampezzoa triassica. AP Photo/A. Schmidt, University of Göttingen, Proceedings of the National Academy.
Scientists have found three well preserved ancient insects frozen in amber — and time — in what is Earth’s oldest bug trap.
The discoveries of amber-encased insects in Italy may sound like something out of “Jurassic Park” but these bugs are even older than that. They are about 230 million years old, which puts them in the Triassic time period, and about 100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin, or amber.
Gooey tree resin is like sap but without water and can’t be diluted.
Researchers painstakingly examined 70,000 droplets of amber found in northeastern Italy. Stuck in them were two microscopic mites and much of one fly. The mites are too small to be seen with the naked eye and the fly is a tad tinier than a fruit fly, researchers say.
You can read the full article via ArtDaily here.
You Might Also Like...
Martin Luther King Jr stood 30 feet tall on the National Mall as a memorial to him was unveiled on Monday morning -- the first memorial on the Mall ...
READ MORE
The National Gallery of Victoria welcomed Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh to The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. The Royal visit in the ...
READ MORE
A new display at the National Portrait Gallery plays tribute to the life and career of artist Richard Hamilton, who died earlier this year. Ten portraits of Hamilton, one of ...
READ MORE
The Impressionist and Modern Art and The Art of the Surreal Evening Auctions will take place on 7 February 2012 at 7pm with a pre-sale estimate of £86,205,000 -127,090,000 (corresponding ...
READ MORE
A new display of photographs by legendary Soho figure, Daniel Farson opened at the National Portrait Gallery on 19 March. Famous in the Fifties: Photographs by Daniel Farson celebrates the ...
READ MORE
In the second half of the 1960s Richard Serra, Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman, among others, were carving out the afterlife of Minimalism. Bill Bollinger, then in his 20s and ...
READ MORE
The world today is facing environmental degradation of an unprecedented scale. The massive loss of habitat, the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species and of entire natural communities, ...
READ MORE
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned more than 4,000 pieces of stolen and looted cultural artifacts to the government of Mexico at a repatriation ceremony today at the Consulate of ...
READ MORE
Martin Luther King Memorial by Chinese Sculptor Lei
National Gallery of Victoria Welcomes The Queen
Richard Hamilton: Portrait of the Artist at the
Gris, Van Gogh, Signac & Miro Lead Christie’s
Photographs by Daniel Faeson on View at the
Bill Bollinger’s Works Resurface in Two Exhibitions
BioMuseo Designed by Frank Gehry Aims to Safeguard
ICE Returns Stolen and Looted Archeological Art and
