250 Million Year-Old Insects Trapped In Resin

Scientists have discovered the oldest insects preserved in amber (amber). Specimens, one flies and two mites, found in the resin droplets of northeast Italy.

This insect age about 100 million years older than other amber arthropods ever collected. This discovery is similar themes in Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs cloned from DNA found in the blood of mosquitoes preserved in stone resin YNG.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paving the way for a better understanding of the evolution of the most diverse groups of organisms on earth.

"Amber is an invaluable tool for paleontologists preserve specimens for microscopic scale, allowing an accurate estimate of the evolutionary changes over millions of years, says author David Grimaldi, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History.

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