Scientists working in Myanmar have uncovered a nearly 100-million-year-old baby snake encased in amber. Dating back to the Late Cretaceous, it’s the oldest known baby snake in the fossil record, and the first snake known to have lived in a forested environment.
Featherwing beetles are some of the smallest insects out there—and one researcher managed to spot an ancient specimen in a 99-million-year-old chunk of amber. Just half a millimeter long, this Cretaceous period beetle had its signature fringed wings unfurled when it met its sticky demise.
Millions of years ago, unlucky animals settled in the sticky resin of trees, only to be trapped and preserved until we humans found them. Fossils of the distant future, however, will probably be a whole lot weirder than bugs in tree sap.
This has been a huge year for finding specimens in amber, from bird wings to dinosaur feathers to this ugly-ass bug. But this new finding might be the best one yet: a nearly complete 99-million-year-old baby bird.
A tick sucks some monkey blood. A monkey’s grooming partner picks the tick off. The tick lands in some sap. The whole thing fossilizes. Scientists discover the cells inside the tick in the amber. They turn the blood cells into monkey clones and you’ve essentially got some sort of Jurassic Park in real life.
Scientists in China have discovered male damselflies caught in the act of trying to court females inside a piece of 100-million-year old amber. It’s an extremely rare find, providing a glimpse of insectoid peacocking behavior during the age of dinosaurs.
Say hello to Aethiocarenus burmanicus, an ancient insect so strange—and so god awfully ugly—its discoverers had to create an entirely new scientific classification to catalogue it.
Amber delivers a slice of ancient life, showing us everything from early predation to the earliest preserved erect penis. Now, in a 30-year-old amber collection, scientists have found the earliest ancestor of those famous drawing-room mystery poisons, strychnine and curare.
Researchers working in Burma have uncovered the fossilized remains of a 99-million-year old male daddy longlegs with its penis fully extended and erect. It’s possibly the oldest—and longest held—erection in the history of science.
This ancient ant and its parasitic companion became locked together in amber about 44 to 49 million years ago. It's the oldest known example of a mite attached to its victim.
In the late 1950s, an entomologist named Milton Sanderson collected some 160 pounds of 20 million year old amber in the Dominican Republic. Now, 50 years later, that amber is finally giving up its secrets, including a fascinating insect named for David Attenborough.
Finding ancient bugs trapped in amber is hardly new, but this Cretaceous-era assassin fly may be the most pristine three-dimensional preservation of an insect we've ever seen.
Well, it looks like we may never have our own Jurassic Park. Scientists at the University of Manchester failed to pull DNA samples from insects trapped in 10,600 year-old amber, leading them to conclude that the chances of extracting intact DNA from samples millions of years older is likely impossible.
Good news Nokia Lumia owners: everyone will be able to use the fancy new camera tech that the new Lumia 925 comes packing, thanks to an “amber” software update that’ll be hitting your phones soon.
100 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still around, this spider had captured a wasp in his web. The wasp was going to be the spider's dinner. The wasp was going to die watching the spider kill him. The wasp was going to—SPLAT. At that exact moment—one hundred million freaking years ago—tree resin flowed over on…
Mayflies spend a year awaiting their birth, and then most die after living just one day. Their sole purpose is to pass on their genes, and most never even bother eating...and that's been the status quo for 100 million years.
Deep sea fish assimilating males for extra sperm, flies frozen mid-coitus for 20 million years, and a walrus's penis bone... it's all part of "Sexual Nature", a new exhibition at London's Natural History Museum that spotlights the many awesomely strange forms that animal intercourse can take. Let's go on a Valentine's…
This ant, preserved in amber 50 million years ago, is evidence that we may have dramatically misunderstood the environmental history of India.
By providing you with an easy way to keep your child's information all in one place, this USB Amber Alert Child ID kit can be a lifesaver in the hopefully unlikely event that your child goes missing. The device gives you a nice software app where you can enter in photos, emails, personal blog URLs, medical…
