The mayfly sits poised and apparently ready for flight, its veined transparent wings as perfect as the day it hatched.
It will certainly not take to the air however, as it sits trapped in prehistoric amber 25 million years old.
Mr Andrew Ross, head curator of the amber collection held by Britain's Natural History Museum, held up the piece of rare Mexican amber which contained the mayfly, a new and unique species of the insect but related to a living member of the mayfly family known as the baetiidae.
Mr Ross, who was addressing a session of the British Association meeting this week at Cardiff University, receives up to a thousand pieces of amber a year from major producing countries such as the Dominican Republic and the Baltics.
It can change hands for anything from $7 up to $10,000 per piece, depending on what it might contain, he said.
This amount of amber, which is a form of fossilised tree resin, is sufficient to ensure Mr Ross is able to identify 50 new insect species every year, adding to our knowledge of fauna from millions of years ago. "There are new things turning up all the time," he said.
"Amber is an amazing substance that will preserve things that would never be preserved in rock," Mr Ross added.
Samples held at the museum contained a remarkable mix of prehistoric insects, but also other things such as flowers, spiders and even lizards, he said.
One of the oldest samples came from when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth 80 million years ago. It was recovered from Burma and contained a small piece of reptile skin. Researchers at the museum had tried to recover DNA from some samples but were unsuccessful, Mr Ross said.
It was unlikely, he added, that viable DNA would ever be recovered in this way. This, no doubt, will disappoint fans of the Jurassic Park films which are based on regenerating dinosaurs from blood recovered from biting insects trapped in amber.