'Frozen behaviors' in amber fossils: How to reconstruct mating behavior of long-extinct termites
Published Date: 3/6/2024
Source: phys.org
Approximately 38 million years ago two termites were in the middle of courtship behavior when they got entrapped by tree resin and preserved in fossilized amber. This, so far, oldest and only-described fossil of an Electrotermes affinis termite pair gave researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) the unique chance to analyze the mating behavior of the extinct insects.