May 18, 2012 | 5 A hundred million years ago, everything looked
quite different. There were dinosaurs on land and gigantic
creatures in the sea, and the continents were arranged quite
differently. But one thing would be familiar to the modern eye:
pollination. Recently, scientists found pollen grains on tiny
insects preserved in amber from the Cretaceous period, providing
the oldest known record of pollination. Today, pollination is
all around us. Over 80 percent of plant species depend on
insects to transfer little nuggets of pollen from the male to
female parts of flowers for reproduction. Many flowers have
specialized parts to attract insects to them, and many insects
have corresponding hairs adapted to gathering and carrying
pollen. But it wasn't always that way—pollination has evolved
over millions of years, and probably began at the beginning of
the Cretaceous, perhaps even with insects like these. The tiny
insects here belong to a group called thrips—critters with
fringed wings that are less than two m