The beetle, which lived about 49 million years ago, is so well preserved that the insect looks like it could spread its ornate wings and fly away. This is otherwise crushed and petrified.
Scientists recently reported that the wing shell, or elytra, is one of the strongest parts of the beetle’s exoskeleton, but nevertheless, this degree of color variation and clarity in fossils is extremely rare.
The beautiful design of the ancient Eletra beetle prompted researchers to name it Jamal Attenborough, or The Beauty of Attenborough, named after the famous naturalist and television presenter Sir David Attenborough. In a new study, they write, this pattern is “the most conserved pigment color known in beetle fossils.”
Related: Meet the Beetles: Amazing Museum Models from London
When researchers describe the beauty of beetlesAnd It is already in the collection of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS) in Colorado, where it has been on display since its identification in 1995. Paleontologists found the fossil that year in the Green River formation. This rich fossil site is a group of lakes, spanning Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, originating from time Eocene (55.8 million to 33.9 million years ago).
Scientists initially classified the fossil as a long-horned beetle in the Cerambycidae sex. But despite its similar body shape to that of a long-horned beetle, its hind legs are unusually short, prompting the Museum’s chief entomology curator – Frank Thorsten Creel, lead author of the new study – to question whether the beetle belongs to a different species. group. .
In the study, the authors describe the beetles as a new genus in a subfamily known for their strong and sturdy hind legs: the frog-legged leaf beetles. The fossilized insect, the female, is only the second example of a frog-legged leaf beetle found in North America, Creel told Live Science in an email (no modern beetles in this group live in North America today, according to the study). On AttenboroughThe dark, symmetrical circle pattern on the back stands out in sharp contrast against the light background. The researchers report that this suggests a thick pattern in the beetle at least 50 million years ago.
For the beetle to petrify while doing this, Creel says, “it needs fine-grained sediment.” Mud or silt at the bottom of a lake is the best substrate for insect fossils, and the beetle must quickly sink to the bottom of the alluvial lake before its body disintegrates. “And it shouldn’t rot, so— OxygenThe bad environment at the bottom of the lake is beneficial.”
However, questions remain about how the sediment at the bottom of the lake retains the beetle’s high-contrast colors so clearly, Creel added. DMNS visitors can like Attenborough For themselves, as the renamed fossil returns for display at the museum’s “Prehistoric Journey” exhibit, the actors He said in a statement.
The results were published August 6 in the journal paleontology papers.
Originally published in Live Science.
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