Posted on 11/02/2018 7:42:10 AM PDT by ETL
A 99-million-year-old beetle has been found, trapped in amber, stunning scientists.
The new beetle, known as Propiestus archaicus, was found in Hukawng Valley in the northern part Myanmar, near China's southern border. P. archaicus is a distant relative of today's rove beetles, found in South America and the southern part of Arizona, revealing that the continents shifted rapidly millions of years ago to what we now see today.
"This is a very rare find," Shuhei Yamamoto said, a Field Museum researcher and lead author of a paper in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, said in a statement.
Thanks to the beetle, the researchers now believe that Myanmar was part of Gondwanaland, a massive continent that was formed after Pangea broke up.
During the Late Cretaceous period, massive dinosaurs walked the Earth, but it's the diminutive beetle, which measures 0.1 inches long, that surprised the researchers.
Yamamoto noted the beetles were walking underneath rotting trees and their antennae helped them navigate the tough terrain.
"The antennae probably had a highly sensitive ability as a sensory organ," Yamamoto said. "There wouldn't have been a lot of space available in the beetle's habitat, so it was important to be able to detect everything."
Yamamoto added that the finding "probably shows some amazing connections between [the] Southern Hemisphere and Myanmar."
"This fossil helps us understand life in the Mesozoic era," he concluded. "We need to think about everything from that time, both big and small."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
99 million year old, ya sure
“Peace and love and don’t be sending letters or asking for autographs!”
I understand the process and ideas of Radiometric dating. Not once in the article did they indicate they dug the bug out and took a specimen and performed this procedure for dating. These “scientists” conjured the date up from the ‘thin air’. They do this all the time...it’s lazy and careless.
______________________________________________________
Amber (Burmite) from the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar has been known since at least the 1st century AD. It is currently being produced from a hill known as Noije Bum, which was first documented as a source of amber in 1836.
Several geologists visited the locality between 1892 and 1930.
All of them believed that the host rocks to the amber are Tertiary (most said Eocene) in age, and this conclusion has been widely quoted in the literature.
However, recent work indicates a Cretaceous age. Insect inclusions in amber are considered to be TuronianCenomanian, and a specimen of the ammonite Mortoniceras (of Middle-Upper Albian age) was discovered during the authors visit.
Palynomorphs in samples collected by the authors suggest that the amber-bearing horizon is Upper Albian to Lower Cenomanian. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that both rocks and amber are most probably Upper Albian.
This determination is significant for the study of insect evolution, indicating that the oldest known definitive ants have been identified in this amber [American Museum Novitates 3361 (2002) 72].
This site occurs within the Hukawng Basin, which is comprised of folded sedimentary (±volcanic) rocks of Cretaceous and Cenozoic age. The mine exposes a variety of clastic sedimentary rocks, with thin limestone beds, and abundant carbonaceous material. The sediments were deposited in a nearshore marine environment, such as a bay or estuary.
Amber is found in a fine clastic facies, principally as disk shaped clasts, oriented parallel to bedding. A minority occurs as runnels (stalactite shaped), with concentric layering caused by recurring flows of resin.
An Upper Albian age is similar to that of Orbitolina limestones known from a number of locations in northern Myanmar. One of these, at Nam Sakhaw, 90 km SW of Noije Bum, has also been a source of amber.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367912002000445
“...Insect inclusions in amber are considered to be TuronianCenomanian...”
Yeah. “Considered”. Assumed.
I have a question that I am hoping a smart biologist or scientist can help me understand.
First, please understand that I believe in evolution and that I am not looking for any young earthers or creationists to answer this.
but....Why is it that this species along with nearly every other species can exist in the same basic form for millions and millions of years while some species (us) dramatically change over the course of a couple hundred thousand years?
I would expect to see a bug that looks nearly identical to this beetle if I were to walk out in the woods today. On the other hand, 99 million years ago there was nothing that even looked remotely similar to a human being.
How is that so?
It seems that these beetles (or crocodiles, or fish, or sharks, or lizards, or birds, or jelly fish, or octopus, or trees, or grass, or mussels, or mushrooms, or bacteria, etc...) are so well adapted and good at survival that they don’t need to change at all (or only slightly) over tens of millions of years. At the same time, we are so terrible at survival that we need to be constantly, radically changing our form just to survive the environment.
Is that the answer?.....We just suck at living?
As a follow up, are there any other species that suck anywhere close to as bad as we do and nothing even similar to their form and function existed just 1 or 2 million years ago?
Yeah. Considered. Assumed.
The amber itself is apparently that age (TuronianCenomanian/~99 million years). There is little chance the insects perserved in it are of vastly different ages.
*ping*
It looks pretty good for 99 million years.
Thanks fieldmarshaldj. Another "Look Back in Amber" ping. Good choice for the weekly digest ping, although there were some other great topics this week.
I shouldn’t admit this, but I recognize the guy in the bottom picture with John Cleese. He was in Revenge of the Pink Panther. He was the guy who blew raspberries at Clouseau in the mental institution.
Did they let the bug out?
His name was Andrew Sachs. He died 2-3 years ago. Didn't recognize him in the Pink Panther film. Will look for him next time I see it. He was great as Einstein in the Nova special, Einstein Revealed.
Sure as heck does. And 99 million is of course within the dinosaur era: ~235 to 65 million. Could possibly be a few "dino flakes" on it.
;)
I thought it was a VW and I was going to alert my son (who is, sadly, not a FReeper.)
What a disappointment! LOL!
;o]
‘Face
Plus, it floats.
Truth!
;o]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.