The oldest amber recovered dates to the Upper Carboniferous period (320 million years ago).[2][24] Its chemical composition makes it difficult to match the amber to its producers - it is most similar to the resins produced by flowering plants, which did not evolve until the Jurassic, around 180 million years ago. Amber becomes abundant soon afterwards, in the Early Cretaceous, 150 million years ago,[2] when it is found in association with insects. The oldest amber with arthropod inclusions comes from the Middle East from Lebanon and Jordan (Kaddumi, 2007; Azar, 2000). This amber is roughly 133 million years old and is considered of high scientific value. Many remarkable insects and spiders were recently discovered in the amber of Jordan (Kaddumi, 2007) including the oldest zorapterans, clerid beetles, umenocoleid roaches, and achiliid planthoppers.
Like a miniature version of the tar pits of La Brea, resin traps various creatures and objects in it before becoming amber. This piece of amber contains a fairly complete fossil insect. Despite what you saw in the movie Jurassic Park, extracting DNA from amber fossils is not routinely, or even occasionally successful. So although amber specimens contain some amazing fossils, they are not good examples of pristine preservation. Insects were the first creatures to take to the air, and their rare fossils date back to the Devonian, about 400 million years ago. The unusually good Wikipedia article on insect evolution suggests that the first winged insects arose with the first forests, which would make their association with amber even more intimate.
Although the new amber didna’t yield bizarre new species, it/’s still loaded with fossil treasures. More than 700 insect species representing 55 families of insects have been identified inside. Among them are ancient bees, termites and ants a— highly social insects that form some of the worldm’s most complex societies.
