The Mystery of the Dinosaur Lice In Amber

#insectdiversity #insectanatomy #insectmorphology #insecttaxonomy #entomology #insects #dinosaurs #amber

How did a bunch of baby plant pests get confused with dinosaur parasites trapped in amber?

Articles:
Gao, T., Yin, X., Shih, C. et al. New insects feeding on dinosaur feathers in mid-Cretaceous amber. Nat Commun 10, 5424 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13516-4
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13516-4.pdf

Grimaldi DA, Vea IM. Insects with 100 million-year-old dinosaur feathers are not ectoparasites. Nat Commun. 2021 Mar 5;12(1):1469. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21751-x. PMID: 33674573; PMCID: PMC7935990.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7935990/pdf/41467_2021_Article_21751.pdf

Shcherbakov, D. E. "Crawlers of the Scale Insect Mesophthirus (Homoptera: Xylococcidae) on Feathers in Burmese Amber—Wind Transport or Phoresy on Dinosaurs?." Paleontological Journal 56.3 (2022): 338-348.