Scientists Catch Froghoppers Having Sex Via 165 Million Year Old Fossil

Scientists caught two insects having sex 165 million years ago when they found the fossil remains of a pair of froghoppers mating, Live Science reported. The report, titled, "Forever Love: The Hitherto Earliest Record of Copulating Insects from the Middle Jurassic of China," was documented in the online journal Plos One on Wednesday.

Sixty-five million years older than the next oldest fossil of mating insects ever found, the specimen was incredibly preserved.

"The male and female organ we can see it," study co-author Chung Kun Shih told LiveScience. "That's really rare."

Rare is a relative term for the region of inner Mongolia in China where the insects were found. According to Shih, the "insect fossils are so good (in the region) we can see the detailed structure, including the hair."

Still, only about 40 fossils capturing insect sex have ever been found, according to Live Science.

"Behavior doesn't fossilize," Marlene Zuk, author of "Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language From the Insect World," told The New York Times. "Obviously," she added, "there's behavior going on here."

The froghopper, which resembles the grasshopper and leaps around 100 times its body length, hasn't really changed that much in 165 million years, according to the researchers and as evidenced by the fossil remains.

Nor has its mating rituals. The position the fossilized hoppers were in -- facing each other -- is still common for froghopper sex. The species also tries it side-by-side, on a leaf, or standing on a twig, according to Live Science. Researchers aren't sure if the two love bugs were originally face-to-face or if they were actually side-by-side and eventually shifted towards each other by natural forces.

Why hasn't sex changed in over 100 million years for froghoppers? That question wasn't addressed directly in the paper, but Sih said the answer is probably self-explanatory.

"This works," he told The New York Times. "They don't need to change."

Shih and colleagues hypothesize the poisonous gas created from a volcanic eruption encapsulated the two grasshoppers during the act, Live Science reported.