If you travelled back to Spain, during the Cretaceous period, you might see an insect so bizarre that you’d think you were hallucinating. That’s certainly what Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente thought when he found the creature entombed in amber in 2008.

The fossilised insect of the larva of a lacewing. Around 1,200 species of lacewings still exist, and their larvae are voracious predators of aphids and other small bugs. They also attach bits of garbage to tangled bristles jutting from their backs, including plant fibres, bits of bark and leaf, algae and moss, snail shells, and even the corpses of their victims. Dressed as walking trash, the larvae camouflage themselves from predators like wasps or cannibalistic lacewings. And