Forty or so million years ago, in the southern supercontinent of Gondwana, two mating insects suddenly found themselves in a quandary.
Somehow, this pair of busy long-legged flies (Dolichopodidae) were trapped in the sticky sap of the tree, and there was simply no escape from it. This moment marked the beginning and end of this random romance.
The hardened resin turned into amber, and the moment turned into something longer. In 2011, the precious scene fell into the hands of paleontologists working in the Otway Basin in southern Australia.
At first, lead researcher Jeffrey Stilwell of Monash University said he couldn't believe his eyes. Small ancient creatures are often found in petrified resin, but for some reason such specimens are rare in the Southern Hemisphere.
And yes, this is probably what they were doing. Paleontologist Victoria McCoy, who was not involved in the discovery, told The New York Times that she thought the picture was pretty clear.
'Perhaps one fly got caught in the resin and the other was a little agitated and tried to mate,' she said.
Stillwell calls amber the 'Holy Grail' of his discipline because it preserves ancient organisms in eternal animation, 'they look just like they died yesterday.'
“This is one of the greatest discoveries in paleontology for Australia,” says Stillwell, adding that it may be the first example of 'frozen behavior' in the continent's fossil material.
The study was published in Nature Scientific Reports.
