To understand how and why color is preserved in some amber fossils but not in others, and whether the colors seen in fossils are the same as the ones insects paraded more than 99 million years ago, the researchers used a diamond knife blades to cut through the exoskeleton of two of the colorful amber wasps and a sample of normal dull cuticle. Using electron microscopy, they were able to show that colorful amber fossils have a well-preserved exoskeleton nanostructure that scatters light. The unaltered nanostructure of colored insects suggested that the colors preserved in amber may be the same...