Insects preserved in amber still glowing 99 million years later in Myanmar

Scientists have discovered a lot about prehistoric life through fossils. Although fossils help in discovering many unkwn facts, y still can’t reveal everything. For instance, fossils don’t tell us what colours were ancient animals and plants. However, in an extremely rare case researchers got lucky. According to a study published in journal Proceedings of Royal Society B, researchers have been able to identify colours of three ancient insects which were preserved in amber. Re on to kw more.

Source: Royal Society Publishing Official Website

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Where was study conducted?

This groundbreaking study was conducted by researchers at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, in China. insects can be dated back to Cretaceous period, which occurred 99 million years ago. study revealed that se insects were all preserved in pieces of amber found in a mine in rrn Myanmar. 

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Which insects were found?

insects appear to be glowing inside amber. re is a beetle, a fly, and a wasp inside amber. Researchers have claimed that y are so well-preserved that ir true colours have been easily identified.

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Which colours were seen on insects?

In past, re have been reports about identifying colour in fossils. But, times researchers realised that what y were looking at were t true colours of animal or plant. This happens because colours of fossils undergo changes over thousands of years due to fossilisation process. study revealed that in case of se insects, ir “structural colours” have remained visible even after researchers carefully polished amber until and exposed  insect’s bodies’. insects have blue, green, and purple colours on ir bodies.

researchers said that se ims were edited in Photoshop to just brightness and contrast. But, y also mention that colours were t changed or tampered with. lumius structural hues present on se insects indicate that y have evolved se iridescent traits independently from ir genealogy. Sly, this is where story of se glowing insects ends. oldest amber in fossil record appears to be about 320 million years old, which is t too long ago on geologic timescale. amber in Myanmar is from Cretaceous period.

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According to ar report in Popular Science, mining amber is a big but, ethically questionable business in Myanmar. awareness around this ethical issue has grown in recent years. This April 2020, representatives of Society of Vertebrate Paleontology h signed ir names to a letter requesting editors of scientific journals to stop accepting papers whose findings were based on   Burmese amber.