the Research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and palaeontology (NIGPAS) by using the electron microscope was able to restore the true color of the insects found in amber age 99 million years.
About the opening of said Chinese Academy of Sciences, and all the work can be found in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Nature has always been full of colors. However, frozen in the amber of ancient insects often have the same pale yellowish-brown color, and brightly colored are very rare. Therefore, the reconstruction in many cases is a figment of the imagination of artists.
a New study is literally allowed to look at true colors on insects that coexisted with dinosaurs in the Cretaceous tropical forests. Just was studied, 35 amber pieces from frozen in them colored insects found in the North of Myanmar.
This set includes frozen in the resin of OS-cuckoos with bluish-green, yellowish-green, purplish blue and green colors on the head, torso and legs. The researchers also found blue and purple bugs and a dark green fly.
“the Type of color that persists in amber fossils, called structural color, says study co-author pan Anong. – This is due to the microscopic surface structure of the insect. It disperses light with a certain wavelength and produces very intense colors. This same mechanism is responsible for many colors that we see in our daily life”.
to understand how and why the color is preserved in some amber pieces, but is not saved in the other, the researchers used a diamond knife. They also wanted to understand whether the colors we see in the fossil record today, with the actual color of the insects 99 million years ago.
With a diamond knife, scientists were able to cut the exoskeletons of two ancient OS-cuckoos. Was later used an electron microscope. The analysis showed that the nanoscale structure of the exoskeleton is very well preserved and continues to scatter light. This suggests that the observed color is now at least very close to real.
the Study also proved that in the Cretaceous period, the color served as a camouflage insect, often serve them in our days. For example, the ancient wasp-cuckoo was a parasite that laid eggs in the nest are not related by kinship bees and regular wasps. It is the color allowed them to remain undetected.
the Study will continue. Scientists do not exclude that in ancient times colors to insects played other roles, in addition to the masking, for example, helped the body’s thermoregulation.
