PhysOrg.com [USA], January 7, 2011
German entomologists have now "resurrected" the fossil insect Mengea
tertiara. Using high resolution micro-computer tomography the anatomy of
an extinct insect was completely reconstructed three-dimensionally for
the first time. Its stay on this planet was actually meant to be a very
short one. Male twisted-wing parasites (Strepsiptera) usually have a
life span of only few hours. However, accidentally a specimen of Mengea
tertiara, about the size of an aphid, became preserved for 'eternity':
during its wedding flight about 42 million years ago it was caught in a
drop of tree resin and subsequently almost perfectly conserved in a
piece of amber. PD Dr. Hans Pohl of Friedrich Schiller University Jena
(Germany) calls this "a very exceptional stroke of luck." Together with
colleagues from Jena, Hamburg and New York, the insect researcher at the
Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology with Phyletic
Museum has now 'resurrected' the fossil insect: using high resolution
micro-computer tomography (micro-CT) the anatomy of an extinct insect
was completely reconstructed three-dimensionally for the first time.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-flight.html
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