'Newly identified' 100 million-year-old grass could be the oldest on Earth

 

Washington:  Scientists have found a 100 million-year-old specimen of grass preserved in amber in Myanmar.

 

The finding by Oregon State University researchers pushes the date of the earliest dated grasses from 55 million-years to 100 million-years, potentially to the Late Cretaceous period.

 

Scientists used non-invasive methods to determine the type of grass found, as amber specimens can be unique. They believe they have identified "spikelet", which is grass in its flowering state, and fossilized ergot, which is a major ingredient of LSD. This potentially means that dinosaurs could have been eating hallucinogens and grass.

 

Other members of the scientific community have argued that the findings are inconclusive as the results of the tests are less rigorous.

 

The findings will be published in the EARTH magazine