Polish, Chinese, German and Japanese scientists have learned the details of the structure of the beetle embedded in amber. They used the second largest (after CERN) European particle accelerator. The results are described in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
Describing Lepiceratus ankylosaurus, a cretaceous beetle of the Myxophag relic suborder and tracing the evolutionary history of this group, would not have been possible without synchrotron tomography. This technique enabled to break through the impurities of partially opaque amber; to look through air bubbles and layers of milky resin, and even inside an insect.
Only 1.7 mm long, the specimen was identified as a new genus and species and compared in detail with its modern relatives. The synchrotron allowed to obtain a full, three-dimensional image and rotate the 3D visualization to examine the beetle from any side.
