Â鶹Éç

You never know what you'll find if you look hard enough.

Well, the curators at London's Natural History Museum have just discovered a pair of VERY old beetles hidden in one of their collections.

The two beetles were found hidden in the grooves of a piece of oak that was dug from a peat bog in the 1970s.

In the time since, they have never been examined.

That is, until now... And, it turns out the beetles are 4000 years old!

The beetles are called Oak Capricorns. This is a species not previously known to have ever existed in Britain.

They are about the size of a human thumb and if they were alive today they would be among the UK's largest beetles.

The NHM's senior curator of insects, Max Barclay said: "As far as I know, the story is this: A farmer in eastern England was cutting up wood he'd found while doing some deep ploughing and discovered these insects inside; dead, of course.

"This was a huge piece of waterlogged oak, and he sent us a sample. I think, primarily, he was concerned the beetles were pests. My colleagues at the time said, 'well, they're not British', and so they were left.

"Today, you find this species halfway down France. You get it in Poland, Hungary and into Slovakia. And there are also old records from southern Germany.

"We recently had the opportunity with some American collaborators to actually date the wood and the beetles. This was really interesting. Because the beetles are inside the wood, you know they're the same age."

When these beetles were in England, it was the Bronze age and the country had relatively dry and warm conditions.

The NHM holds 8-10 million beetle specimens in its collections.

This means it's very difficult for the museum curators to work out where all of the beetles originate from.

What do you think of these ancient critters? Let us know in the comments.