A new species of grasshopper believed to have lived millions of years ago has been discovered inside a pile of ancient amber, according to Illinois Natural History Survey researchers.

About the size of a rose thorn, Electrotettix attenboroughi lived in the Dominican Republic an estimated 20 million years ago and sports vestigial wings, hinting at winged ancestors, the Washington Post reported.

"We wouldn't exactly call it a missing link, but it's certainly an interesting intermediate between a fully winged ancestor and a wingless descendant," said Sam Heads, a paleontologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, as quoted by the Post.

The piece of amber in which the pygmy grasshopper was discovered had been part of a 160-pound haul gathered in the 1950s by entomologist Milton Sanderson, who described the find in a Science report but soon after moved on to other things.

Heads began hunting through the amber trove in 2010, screening it for fossils. The new insect was discovered almost immediately, and Heads and laboratory technician Jared Thomas predict that they will find more.

"I'd say 1 in 10 pieces have fossils in them," Heads said, "and often more than one. So we find them every day, and if you're looking long enough, you'll find something new."

Heads and Thomas slice into the amber with a jeweler's saw each time they work to uncover fossils, a nerve-wracking process that takes several hours as the team decides where to cut, according to Wired.

"You practice with amber that doesn't have inclusions," said Thomas, as quoted by Wired. "That makes it much more ok if you screw up. 'Hey, I found a fossil! Oh, just obliterated it. Sorry.'"

Heads happened to be cutting the piece that contained the valuable grasshopper find.

"I held my breath, and cut the piece. We were quite pleased that we didn't destroy anything," he said. 

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