Cenozoic Amber

14th September 2008

Amber is in some ways the best preserving medium of fossil plants and animals known. The fossils are preserved in three dimensions, with great surface detail, and allow snapshots of interactions between animals - such as an ectoparasitic mite sucking the haemolymph of its victim, a swarm of nematodes parasitizing a beetle, acts of mating and an ant queen carrying her domesticated honeydew provider. No other style of exceptional fossil preservation can compare.

This small collection of Baltic amber illustrates the fantastic diversity of plants and small animals preserved in fossilized resin from the Eocene Baltic forest. I have also added a few Dominican amber specimens (Miocene, tropical palaeoenvironment), including a fabulously rare vignette of ant-homopteran symbiosis (two other alate females with mealybugs are known) and an example of parasitic nematodes infesting a platypodid beetle.

Baltic amber, fruticose lichen, 23 mm in 47 mm amber. Poland.	Baltic amber, 4 mm oak flower. Lithuania.	Baltic amber, 6 mm long-petaled flower with three collembolans. Russia.	Baltic amber Thuja. Poland.
Baltic amber Thuja. Poland.	Baltic amber, 3.5 mm pseudoscorpion.Lithuania.	Baltic amber, 7 mm spider with superbly preserved web. Lithuania.	Baltic amber, detail of spider web.
Baltic amber with a parasitic mite sucking the haemolymph from the head of a gnat. Lithuania.	Baltic amber with 16 mm harvestman (Opiliones). Lithuania.	Baltic amber with 16 mm harvestman (Opiliones), detail.	Baltic amber with 1 mm mite. Lithuania.
Baltic amber with 8mm scolopendrid centipede. Lithuania.	Baltic amber (Lithuania) with a beautiful wasp.	10 mm bee in Baltic amber. Poland.	Baltic amber with 4 mm ant. Lithuania.
Baltic amber with 4 mm ant. Lithuania.	Baltic amber with ant and ant larva. Poland. Just yesterday (27/12/08) I watched ants carrying larvae as one of those very rare floods in Oman threatened their nest.	Face to face with an Eocene ant (formicinae), Baltic amber, Poland.	Baltic amber (Poland) with a 3 mm ant of the family Leptanillinae. The wonderful thing about this specimen is that the ant has been wrapped for the feast in spider web.
Drawing of the ant bound for the feast.	Baltic amber, 6 mm click beetle. Lithuania.	Baltic amber (Lithuania) with a beautiful 2 mm beetle.	Baltic amber with 2 mm aphid showing proboscis. Poland.