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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Scientists just found a 46 million-year-old mosquito fossilized in amber and filled with blood!



Sounds like something out of Jurassic Park, except this mosquito is a lot younger than dinosaurs.
This is the first time in history that scientists find a mosquito with a belly full of blood. It was actually discovered 30 years ago in northwestern Montana.
The fossil spent years in a basement and nobody had realized how significant it was until now.
A retired biochemist donated it to the Smithsonian, where they tested it and found iron and heme in it's abdomen, indicating blood.
But don't think we'll be able to get DNA from it. Even though the blood is still there, the actual DNA is long gone. Scientists can't even tell what species the blood came from!

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