Japan: Ancient Praying Mantis Found in Amber National Geographic - April 26, 2008 
An 87-million-year-old praying mantis found encased in amber in Japan may be a "missing link" between mantises from the Cretaceous period and modern-day insects. The fossil mantis measures 0.5 inch (1.4 centimeters) from its antennae to the tip of its abdomen.
Scientists discover first fossil of a leaf insect PhysOrg - February 9, 2007
Stick and leaf insects both belong to the insect order Phamatodea, or phasmid for short, a term which shares the same roots as the word phantom. Besides appropriately describing the species' illusory presence mimicking natural flora, the rare leaf insect was proving to be illusive to scientists in search of the history behind the leaf insects - namely, through a complete absence of fossils.
New Scientist - February 11, 2004
The world's oldest known insect has been found lurking in a fossil-filled vault under a museum. The finding pushes back the origins of winged insects by 80 million years, and could shed light on the mystery of why the ability to fly first evolved.
The fossilised creature, Rhyniognatha hirsti, is 400 million years old and comes from near Aberdeen, Scotland. The Australian entomologist Robin John Tillyard studied it in the 1920s and reported that it might be related to insects, but he could not be sure.
Since then, experts largely accepted Tillyard's suggestion that the fossil is unremarkable, and it was left undisturbed in the vaults of London's Natural History Museum.
But while at the museum gathering photos for a book on insect evolution, two US entomologists stumbled on the Rhyniognatha fossil and looked at it under a microscope. "Today, our microscopes are vastly better than what Tillyard was using," says Michael Engel, of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. "And when we looked through the scope, we were stunned."
Engel, with David Grimaldi of New York's American Museum of Natural History, saw that Rhyniognatha has all the hallmarks of a true insect. Far from being a primitive type, it chewed food with efficient scissor-like jaw mouthparts, or mandibles, with two joints.
Its mandible structure is only ever found in winged insects, which is compelling evidence that Rhyniognatha could fly, even though wings do not appear on the fossil. "The fossil came from hot springs, and unfortunately, boiling water is not a good place for a wing to be preserved," Engel notes.
Until now, the oldest insect fossils on record were a primitive pair of wingless insects 379 million years old, found in New York State and Canada. Winged insects were thought to have evolved later, some 320 million years ago. But Rhyniognatha suggests insects were flying at least 400 million years ago.
Pushing back the evolutionary origins of insects could help explain why they have become so dazzlingly diverse. "Even just the known insect species outnumber all other living things combined," says Engel.
It could also hint at why insects started to fly. Shortly before Rhyniognatha lived, the world's plants had sprouted from dwarfs no more than a metre high into giants more than 30 metres tall. It is possible that insects coped with the new environment by learning to glide from treetops to the ground. Engel now hopes to trawl the world's famous fossil sites to find more insects as old as Rhyniognatha. "We would absolutely die to have an entire bug with wings from that period, we could learn so much from their structure."
CRYSTALINKS MAILING LIST, NEWSLETTER, UPDATES