Post by L Roebuck on Oct 30, 2006 6:41:47 GMT -5
Fossilized Bee Creates A Buzz
By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard
Think of it as a bee-osaurus.
It's as old as the dinosaurs for sure, and just as extinct. As for size, well, the tiny fossilized bee recently uncovered by an Oregon State University scientist is decidedly unlike a dinosaur, but that hasn't kept it from becoming the buzz of the entomology world.
That's because this little bee dates to 100 million years ago, making it the earliest known member of the insect line that later became today's familiar honeybee and the first to show signs that it pollinated flowers. It is helping cement the theory that bees long ago developed a taste for nectar and branched off from meat-eating wasps to pursue a life among the petals.
The discovery by OSU zoologist George Poinar is featured in the current issue of Science magazine in an article he wrote with Cornell University scientist Bryan Danforth.
Poinar discovered the specimen in a chunk of amber dug from a cave in Myanmar more than three years ago. He had set a bag of specimens aside and found the bee in a fingernail-size piece only about a year ago.
Amber begins as tree sap that can ooze over insects that happen to land in it, sealing them inside. Over time, the sap turns into a semiprecious stone, and the bug inside is fossilized.
Full Article
By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard
Think of it as a bee-osaurus.
It's as old as the dinosaurs for sure, and just as extinct. As for size, well, the tiny fossilized bee recently uncovered by an Oregon State University scientist is decidedly unlike a dinosaur, but that hasn't kept it from becoming the buzz of the entomology world.
That's because this little bee dates to 100 million years ago, making it the earliest known member of the insect line that later became today's familiar honeybee and the first to show signs that it pollinated flowers. It is helping cement the theory that bees long ago developed a taste for nectar and branched off from meat-eating wasps to pursue a life among the petals.
The discovery by OSU zoologist George Poinar is featured in the current issue of Science magazine in an article he wrote with Cornell University scientist Bryan Danforth.
Poinar discovered the specimen in a chunk of amber dug from a cave in Myanmar more than three years ago. He had set a bag of specimens aside and found the bee in a fingernail-size piece only about a year ago.
Amber begins as tree sap that can ooze over insects that happen to land in it, sealing them inside. Over time, the sap turns into a semiprecious stone, and the bug inside is fossilized.
Full Article