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100 million-year old insect fossils exhibited in China

Xinhua, September 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

An exhibition of a group of rare insect fossils opened Sunday in Chengdu City in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The one-month exhibition, held by the Insect Museum of West China, will show fossils of the some of the oldest ants, dragonflies, beetles and bees, many of which date back to the Jurassic period.

"The reason for the scarcity of insect fossil is that their exoskeleton do not preserve very well," said museum curator Zhao Li.

Some of the fossilized insects look totally different to their modern descendants, while others look like the same, Zhao added.

The most precious specimen in the exhibition is an ant fossil, which is believed to be 165 million years old, around 45 million years older than an ant fossil found by American archaeologists in the Amazon rainforest.

"The well-preserved fossil was found in volcano limestone in Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region," Zhao said.

The Insect Museum of West China, the biggest insect museum in Asia, boasts more than 400,000 insect samples collected from over 40 countries. Endi