It was a mosquito full of dinosaur blood and encased in amber that helped bring the fictional Jurassic Park to life. While real world bugs stuck in sticky substances don’t lead to dangerous dinosaur parks (yet), they do offer scientists a peek into their past shapes and behaviors. A pair of 38 million year-old termites trapped in tree resin in the middle of a mating behavior are helping scientists understand the mating behaviors of extinct insects. The finding is detailed in a study published March 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The two termites are an extinct species called Electrotermes affinis (E. affinis) and the discovery of this fossil was a bit lucky. Study co-author and entomologist from the Czech Academy of Sciences Aleš Buček saw the piece of amber in an online shop for fossil collectors.
“Termite fossils are very common, but this piece was unique because it contains a pair,” BuÄŤek said in a statement. “I have seen hundreds of fossils with termites enclosed, but never a pair,”Â
[Related: A 50-million-year-old insect testicle is one lucky find.]
BuÄŤek purchased the fossil and a team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology’s (OIST) Evolutionary Genomics Unit in Japan used an X-ray micro-CT to take a closer look at the bugs.Â
“Identifying the species was actually not easy, because there were bubbles in front of important parts of the termite’s bodies,” study co-author and OIST postdoctoral researcher Simon Hellemans, said in a statement.Â
The scan revealed what species they belonged to and also that the trapped termites were a female and male laying side by side. The female’s mouthparts were touching…
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