UK Scientist Shows Off Specimens

By: Nicholas Stathopoulos

The University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana’s Foellinger Auditorium lobby was packed Feb. 27, although this time, some audience members were as old as the dinosaurs.

The 27th annual Insect Fear Film Festival was held at the U of I Foellinger Auditorium. The festival featured face painting, an insect petting zoo, and movies of creepy crawling insects to wrap up the night.

The festival attracted many scientists from a wide variety of places, including the United Kingdom.

Sam Heads, research scientist from the Illinois Natural History Survey and native of the United Kingdom, was present at the festival.

Heads was showing off several fossils he has collected, including ones from the Dominican Republic and Brazil.

The most captivating fossil Heads had was a 20-million-year-old cricket enclosed in a rock of amber.

“The piece of amber has been polished and prepared so you can see through it and shine a light through it,” Heads said.

The cricket specimen was also placed under a microscope so individuals could see the insect in great detail.

“If you have a look through the scope, you’ll be able to see some exceptional details of the specimen there,” Heads said.

Heads was also showing other fossils of insects that were preserved in limestone, although these were not under microscopes for magnified viewing. According to Heads, these fossils were 110 to 115 million years old.

“(This) falls well within the age of the dinosaurs,” said Heads. “So when the dinosaurs were wandering around, doing what dinosaurs did, these guys were still hopping around, singing, just as they do today.”