Beetle
Early Eocene
Green River Fm.- Parachute Creek Mbr.
Douglas Pass, CO, USA
Excellent 0.3 inch beetle with eyes and color pattern preserved.

Insect. Arthropod. Coleoptera.

This is an unidentified beetle that lived at a time (approx. 50 million years ago) when much of the Rocky Mountain regions was covered by tropical forest.  It would have looked like Florida out there with palm trees and crocodilians until you saw some of the mammals (dog-sized horses with four toes running around and lemur-like primates in the trees).

Most modern groups of beetles had appeared by the end of the Cretaceous.  Today, there are more than 300,000 species.  Their diversity is so rich that beetles account for almost one-fourth of all animal species.

This one is especially unusual in that it still exhibits its in-life color pattern – a lucky artifact seen in only some fossils.