The 300 million-year-old fossil was found by Richard Knecht, a geology student at Tufts University, and Jake Benner, a senior lecturer in the university's geology department.

They found the fossil in a wooded field behind a strip mall in North Attleborough, Mass., embedded in a shale and sandstone outcropping.

The researchers said the fossilized impression they found is of a primitive flying insect from the Carboniferous Period and is believed the only well-preserved, full-body impression of an insect from that period or earlier.

Benner said the fossil "captures a moment in time over 300 million years ago when a flying insect just happened to land on a damp, muddy surface leaving almost a perfect impression of its body behind."

Knecht and Benner presented the fossil last month in Krakow, Poland, during the Second International Congress on Ichnology.