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99-million-year-old millipede trapped in amber


Still Waters

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Even though we are led to believe that during the Cretaceous the Earth used to be an exclusive home for fearsome giants, including carnivorous velociraptors and arthropods larger than a modern adult human, it turns out that there was still room for harmless minute invertebrates measuring only several millimetres.

Such is the case of a tiny millipede of only 8.2 mm in length, recently found in 99-million-year-old amber in Myanmar. Using the latest research technologies, the scientists concluded that not only were they handling the first fossil millipede of the order (Callipodida) and also the smallest amongst its contemporary relatives, but that its morphology was so unusual that it drastically deviated from its contemporary relatives.

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-d-reconstruction-fossil-description-suborder.html

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  • The title was changed to 99-million-year-old millipede trapped in amber
 

Amber is amazing that it can preserve something millions of years old. Imagine a human in amber, be creepy lol

Edited by AllPossible
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If I had a lot of money, I'd collect insects in amber. My grandma has an amber (complete with bug) necklace. I've always thought it was really cool.

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3 hours ago, Seti42 said:

If I had a lot of money, I'd collect insects in amber. My grandma has an amber (complete with bug) necklace. I've always thought it was really cool.

I was going to say that would make a cool necklace 

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Great find, but Amber is the coolest.

11 hours ago, AllPossible said:

Imagine a human in amber, be creepy 

That would be a waste of amber, 

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Amber preserves insects well because it's just the hard keratin exoskeleton being preserved. A human body carries an enormous amount of bacteria with it, and if a person was locked in sap, this bacteria would digest the soft tissues, probably just leaving a greasy muck. This process starts rapidly in a dead mammal beginning in the gut and the pancreas, which is why dead bodies bloat soon after death. Further, autolytic processes begin in each cell as the cell dies. These things happen in the insects in amber as well, so the guts aren't preserved, just the shell.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolysis_(biology)

 

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So the idea of a mosquito biting a dinosaur, and the dinosaurs's DNA being inside the mosquito, preserved, is just BS, as it is only the hard exoskeleton that is preserved ?

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13 hours ago, Habitat said:

So the idea of a mosquito biting a dinosaur, and the dinosaurs's DNA being inside the mosquito, preserved, is just BS, as it is only the hard exoskeleton that is preserved ?

The DNA does not need to be in the stomach of a whole mosquito to be able to be found. The fossilized remains of the insect is enough.

Finding the DNA inside the fossil can indicate what the insect ate, you do not need the insides of the insect to find that out.

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