creatures like the bug leave such complete fossils, and palaeontologists are particularly interested in the tiny predator’s penis.
Daniel Swanson, one of the team from the University of Illinois that is examining the fossil, says the detailed structures in the insect’s genitalia are “a rare treat”.
These tiny details helped Swanson and his colleagues determine that the bug is from a species that’s previously unknown to science.
The fossil bug dates from the Eocene era, an age that began with a hothouse Earth and ended, after at least two major asteroid strikes, with Antarctica going from a green continent attached to Australia to a desolate, frozen wasteland.
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