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Re: insects
>
> Are insects fossilized the same way that dinosaurs are?
>
The quick answer is no. Insects tend to have a chitin skeleton
whereas the dinosaur has a carbonate - phosphate skeleton. The
processes involved in the fossilisation may allow the preservation of
the cuticle of the insect (skeleton) as a little altered organic
remain. Sometimes the pore spaces within the cuticle will become
filled with minerals such as clays, silica, calcite, or phosphate.
This latter secondary mineralisation of the cuticle is similar to the
way in which some dinosaur remains are preserved. Many dinosaur
bones have the bone carbonate replaced by a secondary, though early,
phosphate as well as the secondary mineralisation of the pore spaces.
The taphonomy of fossil remains is a very complex subject that I can
only hope to skim the surface of in a short email message. I hope
this gives you some idea of the broad issues involved though.
Neil
Neil Clark
Curator of Palaeontology
Hunterian Museum
University of Glasgow
GLASGOW
G12 8QQ
Scotland/UK
email: NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk
'Man must surely have become an immensely worse animal
than his teeth show him to have been designed for'
Hugh Miller (Cruise of the Betsey - 1858)