Wormholes in old books preserve a history of insects ∞

Ed Yong covers a fascinating new study that uses dots of absent ink in old woodcuts to map the historical biogeography of two wood-boring beetles—the common furniture beetle and the Mediterranean furniture beetle. That alone would make it a neat paper, but wait, there’s more. Because the two beetles were once regionally distinct but have become continentally cosmopolitan, the study also charts the growth of international trade throughout Europe.