Researchers revealed a strange and new species of prehistoric insect trapped in amber.
Scientists have discovered a prehistoric insect, fossilized in amber which seems to have a strange alien-looking figure. The insect was considered a new species. The bug presented a strangely shaped head and very long thin legs. It was supposed to have lived in a region known today as Burma approximately a hundred million years back, during the period when dinosaurs populated Earth.
Dr. George Poinar, an emeritus professor of entomology at Oregon State University, stated that the head of the insects looks exactly like how we portrayed aliens to be. It has a long neck, oblong head, big eyes, looking just like an E.T. A group of researchers from Oregon State University unveiled the specimen being entrapped in semi-precious stone amber. The physical features of this insect were recalled to be exceedingly rare.
Poinar argued that it is the first time when he sees such a weird creatures. Due to its strange characteristics, scientists needed to develop a new order to categorize it, being excluded from the 31 order already existing. The paper about the prehistoric insect was recently published in the Cretaceous Research magazine. The newly discovered species of insect has unique features which don’t match with any other species.
Even if there exist about one million different species of insects in the world, they are all encapsulated into 31 scientific orders. The prehistoric critter named A. burmanicus represents the order number 32. Many researchers believe that this new species of insect had once outnumbered the already existing ones.
The alien-looking insect has long antenna which look similar to the ones of other insects living today, but also extremely long legs. The weirdest thing at its appearance it’s the triangular head which appears to be strangely oriented. The exotic insect was revealed to be a female with no wings, which was entrapped in amber dating back mid-Cretaceous Myanmar.
The little creature was described as Aethiocarenus burmanicus sp. et gen. nov., being part of the order known as Aethiocarenodea ord. nov., representative of the family Aethiocarenidae fam. nov. The dorsum of its head has the shape of an isosceles triangle, having the vertex at the base of the neck and the hypotenuse is placed at the top. The strange feature is that usually, for other insects with triangle heads, they have the triangle located at the base of the head, attached to the neck.
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
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