* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Insects in amber

Blobrana · L

Prehistoric tiny bugs found trapped in amber

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.
Read more

Blobrana · L

Mating mites trapped in amber reveal sex role reversal

In the mating game, some female mites are mightier than their mates, new research at the University of Michigan and the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests. The evidence comes, in part, from 40 million-year-old mating mites preserved in Baltic amber.
In a paper published March 1 in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers Pavel Klimov and Ekaterina Sidorchuk describe an extinct mite species in which the traditional sex roles were reversed.
In the extinct mite species Glaesacarus rhombeus, the male lacks the specialized organs for clinging to females that are seen in many present-day mites. The female, however, has a pad-like projection on her rear end that allows her to control the clinging. A remarkably preserved copulating pair of mites found in amber gave Klimov and Sidorchuk a glimpse at how the apparatus worked.
Read more