2,500-year-old beetle fossil found in Nara

Japanese archaeologists have discovered the nearly perfectly preserved remains of a stag beetle, estimated to be over 2,500 years old.

The 6-centimeter body fossil was found in soil around a tree root that had been unearthed at an archaeological site in the city of Gose, Nara Prefecture. The tree root is believed to be between 2,500 and 2,800 years old.

Hard-bodied insect fossils are rarely found intact, because membranes connecting the head and legs to the body tend to decompose.

Yasuhiro Nakatani of the Kashihara City Museum of Insects says the fossil shows that this type of stag beetle hasn't changed in shape for thousands of years.
He says genetic analysis of the remains could provide clues to the natural environment back then.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 15:57

Fossil from Nagasaki identified as dinosaur's leg

A fossil unearthed in western Japan has been identified as a leg joint of a large dinosaur that existed about 84 million years ago. Scientists say this is further proof that Japan was once connected to continental Asia.

The 30 centimeter-square fossil was discovered in an 84 million-year-old layer of earth in Nagasaki City in 2004. It was taken to the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum for cleaning and analysis.

The museum confirmed that the fossil is a left leg joint of an herbivorous dinosaur in the Hadrosaurus genus.

The dinosaur is believed to have been about 10 meters long and had several hundred teeth to chew hard plants.

The museum director, Yoichi Azuma, says fossils of Hadrosaurus are often found in China. He says the latest fossil from Nagasaki provides valuable proof that Japan and continental Asia had once been connected.