Prehistoric insects trapped in amber give an overview of ancient life on earth: “Small windows in the past”

Scientists discovered prehistoric insects preserved in Amber for the first time in South America, offering a new overview of life on Earth at a time when flowering plants began to diversify and spread in the world.

Many specimens found in a stoneware career in Ecuador date from 112 million years ago, said Fabiany Herrera, conservative of fossil plants at the Chicago Field Museum and co-author of the study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and
Environment. According to the study, at least six types of arthropods have been preserved.

Almost all the amber deposits known for the 130 million years have been in the northern hemisphere, and it was for a long time “an enigma” that scientists have found little in the southern regions which once understood the supercontinent Gondwana, said David Grimaldi, an entomologist of the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the discovery.

This marks the first time that the researchers identified the old beetles, flies, ants and wasps in a fossilized trees resin in South America, said Ricardo Pérez la Fuente, paleoentomologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which was not involved in the new study.

“Amber pieces are small windows in the past,” said Fuéz la Fuente, adding that discovery will help researchers understand evolution interactions between flower plants and insects that lived at the time of dinosaurs.

The researchers discovered hundreds of amber fragments, some containing ancient insects, pollen and trees leaves, in a career of sandstone in equator which is on the verge of what is the Amazonia
basin.

According to the study, two types of amber were discovered: there was a more common form of amber found around the roots of resin producing plants, and a rarer shape of the material formed from resin exposed to air. Amber has formed around the roots did not have any specimens, according to the study.

“Another type of forest”

Discoveries prove that the area was once a “resinous and humid forest ecosystem”, according to the study.

But today’s tropical forest is very different from what dinosaurs have traveled, said Herrera. Based on an analysis of fossils in amber, the old tropical forest contained species of ferns and conifers, including the unusual monkey puzzle tree, which no longer grows in the Amazon.

“It was another type of forest,” said Herrera.

Amber deposits were previously known to geologists and minors who worked in the career of Genoveva. The co-author of the Carlos Jaramillo study at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute heard about it about ten years ago and decided to find the exact location, helped by geology field notes.

“I went there and I realized that this place was incredible,” said Jaramillo. “There is so much amber in mines”, and it is more visible in the open career than it would be hidden under layers of dense vegetation.

The researchers will continue to analyze the amber traft to find out more about the biodiversity of the Cretaceous era – including insects that have contributed to the evolution by feeding on flower plants. “Amber tends to preserve things that are tiny,” said Grimaldi.

“This is the moment when the relationship between flower plants and insects started,” said Fuéz la Fuente. “And it turned out to be one of the most successful partnerships in nature.”