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“This work is exciting because such exceptional preservation provides unique insights to one of the least understood life stages of insects, particularly in the geologic past,” lead study author Jaemin Lee, an evolutionary ecologist and doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, told CNN in an email.

The eggs in this fossil stand out for their preservation, “both individually and in clusters,” paleobiologist Dr. Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente, deputy head of research at the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History in the United Kingdom, said in an email.

This branch of science, known as ootaxonomy, “can provide paramount data on the evolution, behavior and ecology of insects in deep time, but which tend to be neglected in paleontological studies.” What’s more, he added, the pod and eggs may offer clues about the environment where they fossilized.

Schierup was conducting a routine visual survey of the site when he spotted the object, which was embedded in a chunk of rock that had rolled down a hill, Famoso recalled.

Schierup swaddled the object in toilet paper, “and carefully returned to the visitor center where our lab is located,” Famoso added.

They brought the specimen to the University of Oregon’s Knight Campus in Eugene, where micro-CT scans were conducted by study coauthor Angela Lin, director of the X-ray Imaging Research Core Facility.

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