From a massive collection of 20-million-year-old amber insects, scientists are finding great insights into the ancient tropical place they inhabited.

Sam Heads, a paleontologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, said that amber grasshoppers found on the collection are very rare and were extraordinarily well-preserved.

Like Us on Facebook

One of the grasshoppers found was a pygmy locust; it is the size of a rose thorn that lived 18 to 20 million years ago and fed on moss, algae and fungi.

It represents the intermediate stage of evolution in the life of Cladonotinae, the subfamily of locusts. The most ancient kind of this group had wings, which their modern counterparts do not have.

The pygmy locust appears to have vestigial wings; these are remnant structures that had already lost their primary function.

The pygmy locust is named Electrotettix Attenboroughi which came from electrum, the Greek word of amber and tettix, the Greek word for grasshopper.

Attenboroughi came from David Attenborough, who is an English broadcaster and naturalist.

Heads explained that he named the pygmy locust after Attenborough because of the broadcaster's interest in amber.

He was also one of Heads' childhood heroes and remains to be his hero, so the scientist decided to name the species in his honor.

Heads said that fossil insects can provide lots of insight into the evolution of specific traits and behavior and give insights on the history of the period

He stressed that they are a tremendous resource for understanding the ancient world, ancient ecosystem and ancient clients.

Even perhaps better than dinosaur bones, he explained.