Meet Aethiocarenus burmanicus. It’s a 100-million-year-old insect from Myanmar trapped in a glob of amber. It has a triangular head with two bulging eyes that make it look a bit like the alien star of the 1982 sci-fi hit ” E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. ” The insect is so different, it was given its own scientific order: Aethiocarenodea.
“I had never really seen anything like it. It appears to be unique in the insect world, and after considerable discussion we decided it had to take its place in a new order,” said Oregon State University entomologist George Poinar, Jr , co-author of a study published online in Cretaceous Research in late December and scheduled for the journal’s April 2017 issue.
