Preserved for 230 million years in droplets of amber just millimeters long, two newly named species of mites and a fly have set a record. They are the oldest arthropods – invertebrate animals that include insects, arachnids, and crustaceans – ever found in amber.
Researchers screened 70,000 amber droplets, resulting in the three arthropod inclusions. Read the full story: http://bit.ly/NA6nRN
Image: Photomicrographs of the two new species of ancient gall mites, taken at 1000x magnification. The gall mites were named (top) Triasacarus fedelei and (bottom) Ampezzoa triassica. (University of Göttingen/A. Schmidt)
