A glimpse into the ancient past has been revealed by the discovery of a 600,000 year-old leaf beetle. The remains of the beetle were well-preserved, thanks to a perfect mix of water and acidic levels. This allowed the true color of the leaf beetle to remain intact, just as it appear 600,000 years ago.
Parker told Discovery News that “these fossils are important because, rather than simply predicting that relatives of animals today were similarly colored, we can prove it.”
Parker, who authored the book “In the Blink of an Eye,” has extensively studied color and its connection to the emergence of vision in the animal kingdom.
“Since vision evolved, everything has been fully adapted to the presence of a retina, adapted in terms of their color, shape and behavior,” he said. “Prior to the first highly mobile predator with vision, the rules would have been much different, and indeed we know from fossils that animal forms and ecology were much different.”
