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Scientist finds 100 million-year-old bee
Associated Press ^ | 10/30/06

Posted on 10/30/2006 8:19:35 AM PST by presidio9

A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found.

"I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before," said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University.

The bee is about 40 million years older than previously found bees. The discovery of the ancient bee may help explain the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants during that time.

Poinar found the bee in amber from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Many researchers buy bags of amber from miners to search for fossils. Amber, a translucent semiprecious stone, is a substance that begins as tree resin. The sticky resin entombs and preserves insects, pollen and other small organisms.

Also embedded in the amber are four kinds of flowers. "So we can imagine this little bee flitting around these tiny flowers millions of years ago," Poinar said.

An article on his discovery will appear Friday in the journal Science, co-authored by bee researcher Bryan Danforth of Cornell University.

In the competing journal Nature this week, there is an article about the unraveling of the genetic map of the honeybee. The recently completed sequencing of the honeybee genome already is giving scientists fresh insights into the social insects.

Poinar's ancient male bee, Melittosphex burmensis, is not a honeybee and not related to any modern bee family.

The pollen-eating bee has a few features of meat-eating wasps, such as narrow hind legs, but the body's branched hairs are a key feature of pollen-spreading bees.

The bee — about one-fifth the size of today's worker honeybee — has a heart-shaped head.

But the ancient bee was probably an evolutionary dead end and may not have given rise to modern bees, scientists said.

"It's exciting to see something that seems so different from what we think of as modern bees," Danforth said. "It's not an ancestor of honeybees, but probably was a species on an early branch of the evolutionary tree of bees that went extinct."


TOPICS: Local News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: amber; auntbea; belushi; fossils; godsgravesglyphs; killerbees; lookbackinamber; paleontology
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To: presidio9

The URL is not working!


21 posted on 10/30/2006 9:00:57 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: Irish_Thatcherite

Belushi in Killer Bee outfit.


22 posted on 10/30/2006 9:02:15 AM PST by presidio9 (Make Mohammed's day: Shoot a nun in the back.)
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To: presidio9

Oh......

;)


23 posted on 10/30/2006 9:04:10 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: presidio9

Ah... it's working now!


24 posted on 10/30/2006 9:16:43 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: Irish_Thatcherite; Lazamataz

25 posted on 10/30/2006 9:20:06 AM PST by presidio9 (Make Mohammed's day: Shoot a nun in the back.)
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To: presidio9

That one also works! :-P


26 posted on 10/30/2006 9:42:59 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: Irish_Thatcherite

I'm not sure just how much American telly you get over there. Do you get the referrence?


27 posted on 10/30/2006 9:45:17 AM PST by presidio9 (Make Mohammed's day: Shoot a nun in the back.)
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To: presidio9

What show is it? Something rings a bell....


28 posted on 10/30/2006 9:54:28 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: Irish_Thatcherite

That's Andy Griffith with Aunt Bea. You may remember his show for starring child actor Ron Howard, and having the catchiest theme-song in the history of television (the whole thing was whistled).


29 posted on 10/30/2006 9:56:19 AM PST by presidio9 (Make Mohammed's day: Shoot a nun in the back.)
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To: presidio9

Ah, I heard of it, but I don't think it has been shown over here... not in recent times, atleast.


30 posted on 10/30/2006 10:01:04 AM PST by Irish_Thatcherite (A vote for Bertie Ahern is a vote for Gerry Adams!|What if I lecture Americans about America?)
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To: presidio9

An inspiration to beedogs everywhere:



http://www.beedogs.com/


31 posted on 10/30/2006 3:27:00 PM PST by MoochPooch (I'm a compassionate cynic.)
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To: presidio9

Bee all that you can bee.


32 posted on 10/30/2006 4:31:39 PM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: presidio9

According to some, early bees were carnivorous. (Though they didn't live a million years ago, much less over a hundred million years ago).


33 posted on 10/30/2006 6:03:50 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( Many pinged, few respond.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Thanks presidio9.

Note: this topic is from 10/30/2006.

Blast from the Past.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


34 posted on 10/01/2011 8:52:49 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: presidio9
A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee

Wow... and I thought turtles lived a long time.

35 posted on 10/01/2011 8:58:09 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: Cementjungle

I thought Natalie Schafer had been dead for years.


36 posted on 10/01/2011 9:17:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: presidio9

37 posted on 10/02/2011 9:21:44 AM PDT by null and void (Day 983 of America's holiday from reality...)
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To: null and void
"Note: this topic is from 10/30/2006. "

So, the bee is now 100,000,005 years and two days old?
38 posted on 10/02/2011 10:41:33 AM PDT by Hegemony Cricket (The emperor has no pedigree.)
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To: presidio9; Irish_Thatcherite

I had a friend who taught his cockatiel to whistle that theme song. Very, very cool.


39 posted on 10/03/2011 3:07:22 AM PDT by tgusa (Gun control: deep breath, sight alignment, squeeze the trigger......)
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To: presidio9
Also embedded in the amber are four kinds of flowers. "So we can imagine this little bee flitting around these tiny flowers millions of years ago," Poinar said.

Somewhere I have a beautiful little leaf I found in amber I got in the Dominican Republic. It's sort of heart-shaped, about 3/16" long with serrated edges. I have (or had unless someone swiped them) other pieces from there with ants and termite wings.
40 posted on 10/03/2011 3:23:30 AM PDT by aruanan
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