A chunk of amber found along the Baltic Sea in Russia provides evidence roughly 50 million years old of an extremely fortunate bug.
An Oregon State University scientist on Thursday described a remarkable piece of amber — fossilized tree sap — containing a mushroom, a strand of mammalian hair and the recently shed exoskeleton of an insect that got away from the oozing sticky stuff in the nick of time, escaping eternal entombment.
The tiny bug looks similar to insects alive today known as walking sticks, whose stick-like appearance provides camouflage that helps keep them safe from hungry birds and other predators.