87-million-year-old Praying Mantis Found Encased In Amber
An amazing discovery at an amber mine in Iwate Prefecture:
An 87 million-year-old fossil of a mantis found cocooned in amber in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, is the oldest mantis discovered in this country, according to the Kuji Amber Museum.
The late-cretaceous fossil was discovered at an excavation site near the museum.
Museum Director Kazuhisa Sasaki found the fossil, which measures about 14 millimeters from the head to the crushed abdomen. Kyoichiro Ueda, the executive curator at the Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History in Kitakyushu, examined the fossil and found a femoral spine at the base of the foreleg that was used to catch prey. The spine is a common characteristic of mantises today.
Ueda said previously discovered cretaceous mantises did not have the spines.
“This mantis is likely a newly discovered species,” he said. “This could be a great discovery that fills a gap in the evolution of the mantis.”
According to National Geographic, the mantis will be on display at the Kuji Amber Museum until June.
| Related Posts: |
|
Crustacean Deathmatches on Japanese TV Japanese scammer used fake one million dollar bills |
Full RSS Feed
87 million years old, eh? Are they sure? I think it’s more like 73 million. Or maybe 49 million. Need to be precise about these kinds of things, you know.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
To be perfectly precise, it’s 87,305,782 years, 6 months, and 21 days old. Dating gets a little hazy after that, but the Institute for Creative Research estimates it died around lunchtime.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Wowsers! That is so cool, at least this is cooler than finding a mosquito in some amber…..friggin’ mosquitos….
hey now, Jurassic Park, remember…
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Jurassic Park used dinosaur blood preserved in mosquitoes. I don’t think praying mantises fed on dinosaurs.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Exactly my point, the mosquitoes helped the Jurassic Park folks to create the dinosaurs. That is way cooler than finding a praying mantis in amber, no blood extracts out of that.
Rate this comment:
0 
0