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Hi Whats is termite it?

I bought this a few years back and I was wondering if it was amber, copal or plastic. It was labeled as Baltic Amber and it has a spider inclusion in it. Are there any tests I can do to it that are pretty reliable and will not ruin it. I put it in salt water and it sunk to the bottom. Not sure if the mixture was correct. I have a saltwater fish tank and I used water from it for the test because it is the same mixture as ocean water. Thanks for any help.

Intact mushroom and mycophagous rove beetle in Burmese amber leak early evolution of mushrooms https://phys.org/news/2017-03-intact-mushroom-mycophagous-rove-beetle.html http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/201703/t20170314_174886.shtml http://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/03/intact-mushroom-and-mycophagous-rove-beetle-in-burmese-amber-leak-early-evolution-of-mushrooms/114360 Chenyang Cai, R. A. B. Leschen, D. S. Hibbett, Fangyuan Xia, Huang Diying, 2017: Mycophagous rove beetles highlight diverse mushrooms in the Cretaceous. Nature Communications DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14894 http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14894 Yours,

Hello, New to this forum. I recently have developed an interest in fossil inclusions in amber. After buying a number of prepared pieces, I decided I would like to try my hand at polishing some of my own. I found myself the owner of several hundred pieces of Dominican amber with inclusions. I have been doing a wet sand, and feel like I am close, but the pieces just don't seem to be getting a nice clear transparent finish. Any tips for finishing? I attached a few photos, the piece with the winged ants is from my collection and was polished by someone else, just for contrast with the one I was working on. I have a few pieces that look like they may have rarer inclusions (one looks like an earwig), so I am hoping to perfect the technique on a few more common pieces before I try my better ones. Thank you! Nathan

Hi all, I picked up this piece of amber because of the interesting coprolite (caterpillar, I think). Anyway, it also has an interesting flying insect with a white substance surrounding it. The wings also look like they have some sort of protrusions along the edges as well. At first I thought it was some sort of spider silk, but I can't see any fibers. The only other thing I could think of was some sort of parasitic fungus. It was really hard to get a good photo of it. Are there any amber experts out there that have come across something like this?

Hello! I have become recently obsessed with amber that contains fossils of ancient life. Looking at a piece of amber is like seeing a tiny piece of another world, frozen in time. Since I'm a newbie to the whole thing (though I've seen Jurassic Park at least 30 times since it came out. Ha ha Somehow I think, not so accurate), any advice and info from all of you would be great! Just anything at all. I have always enjoyed looking at fossils of all sorts but amber is my current interest. I would love to see photos of your collections! I doubt there is anywhere in my neck of the woods to find fossils but if anyone knows of any that would be great too. I can't even get anyone to show me where they find arrowheads and I know for a fact we have those around here. Oh well, some people like to be mysterious.

Lets talk about amber! I would love to pick the brains of experienced collectors. I have done a lot of internet searches and read topics here on this forum, but I would love to know more. Right now I only have one piece (might be copal), that was a gift from someone who went to the big rock show in Arizona. I would love to go to that show myself someday! I have always been fascinated by the little worlds that are in the depths of amber. I would like to buy some more amber for my new collection but I feel the topic is so complicated. The prices range so much for what to the naked eye appears a very similar piece. Best advice on buying amber online? Is it, in your opinion, worth buying rough amber and polishing it yourself? It seems like an interesting treasure hunt! Any thoughts on this inexpensive amber coming out of Indonesia? Any good? Would you ever buy amber where the location it came from is unknown or unrevealed? Does anyone buy in bulk, sight unseen? Advice on storing and safely displaying? Anyone ever coat their amber with anything (wax, polish, etc) to help protect it from changes in temperature and humidity or damage from light? Any help or advice is greatly appreciated! If anyone has photos of their favorite specimens, or specimens you discovered yourself from a rough piece of amber, I would love to see them.

'Alien' insect in amber prompts scientists to add whole new branch to family tree. This bizarre bug is so unusual, entomologists say it belongs in its own, entirely new, order of insects. Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 27, 2017 http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0127/Alien-insect-in-amber-prompts-scientists-to-add-whole-new-branch-to-family-tree Ancient, scary and alien-looking specimen forms a rarity in the insect world – a new order. Oregon State University http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/jan/ancient-scary-and-alien-looking-specimen-forms-rarity-insect-world-–-new-order https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/32520806205/ The paper is: Poinar, G. and Brown, A.E., 2016. An exotic insect Aethiocarenus burmanicus gen. et sp. nov.(Aethiocarenodea ord. nov., Aethiocarenidae fam. nov.) from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber. Cretaceous Research. Volume 72, April 2017, Pages 100–104 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667116302506 Yours, Paul H.

I am looking for fossil amber (no copal at this time, unless it's something really unusual). Locality is not important. I have a ton of Pleistocene, Pliocene, and Miocene fossils from Florida - most of them are from the Peace River locality (Bone Valley formation, Hawthorn Group). If you have some surplus amber to swap, let me know and maybe we can work something out. Reply here or message me to inquire.

Hi Whats is insect it ? Burmite amber.

Can anyone please help identify this insect? According to the label, the amber is from the Dominican Republic, dated to the Oligocene. Right now I'm guessing this is a black scavenger fly. Thanks in advance.

Recently in the news there has been a lot of discussion about a feathered non-avialan theropod /coelurosaur tail that was found intact, kept preserved for 99 million years in amber. Here is the study published about it: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(16)31193-9.pdf and a Nat Geo article http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur-tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/ On an awesome-ness scale of 1 to Sue, where do you place a fossil find like this? (Feel free to insert your own subjective fossil scale criteria, as well as swapping Sue for another fossil that reperesents a perfect 10 to you) -Curious Fossil noob

this just arrived in the mail today and i thought i'd show you guys, especially since sumatran amber is a new dicovery. this is a 10.1 gram semi rough piece of Blue amber from sumatra, Indonesia, and is early miocene in age. it has a small window polished into it but other than that, it is a rough piece. i may post better pictures that show the blue more, like in the middle of the day.

Just showing off some of my digital photography with Chiapas Amber. Chiapas amber is some of the highest quality and most difficult to obtain amber in the world. It is harder than most other ambers. Mexican amber is mined from the state of Chiapas, in Southern Mexico, where the veins running through the strata are estimated to be some 24-30 million years old. Here, the amber was formed from the resin of an ancient tropical tree (genus Hymenaec), the same genus of tree that produces the prized amber of the Dominican Republic.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/24/100-million-years-of-decorating-yourself-in-junk/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20160925ph-bugsinjunk&utm_campaign=Content&sf36857324=1

I have been doing some recent work with Columbian Amber/Copal and thought I would throw this out for a general discussion. It is fun, if nothing else Most of my life I have believed that there is no difference between Copal and Amber. I know chemically there is no difference between the two. Amber/Copal from the same plant from different time periods, even millions of years apart are identical. Fossil resin's molecular make-up is mostly carbon and hydrogen atoms that form hexagonal rings. Molecular bonding between the rings increases over time (called polymerization, as in modern epoxy resins), and the tacky resin becomes hard. For all practical purposes, the hardened resin is a "plastic". Exactly when the resin becomes amber/copal, or a fossil, is not definable by any scientific criteria. I would like to see if others have the same thoughts. I am also attaching a picture of the best piece in my collection. "Best" meaning my favorite. This is one of my favorite articles. The following is by Dr. Robert E. Woodruff Emeritus Taxonomist, Florida State Collection of Arthropods Resins are produced by many trees and other plants; Frankincense of the Bible is one of these. Peach and Cherry trees produce resins that children often use as chewing gum. No botanist or paleontologist knows when resins were first produced, but we know it was probably more than 100 million years ago. They are produced to heal wounds, just as our blood coagulates to seal injuries. There is no doubt that these resins have been produced continuously since they first occured. Because they are affected little by the elements, resins are similar to their original form. Only a few volatile oils are eliminated by time and burial (e.g., in marine sediments that are 3000 ft. elevation now). We use Canadian Balsam as the most permanent sealant for cover slips on microscope slides. Unfortunately, no one can presently date these resins by any definitive tests. Because they have been continuously produced, there are no drastic changes from one geological period to another. We can infer age, if we know the age of a sedimentary deposit in which they are found (this would be a minimum, because older material could have been redeposited). There are those (including several scientists) that insist that the word amber must be reserved for certain age resins. With such a continuous resin production, and no clear dating, it could all be called amber. It is a semantic argument, & those who sell Baltic, Dominican, & Mexican "amber" do not want to use the term for any that might be more recent. Obviously a commercial bias is present. They prefer to use the term "copal". Strictly speaking, the Aztec word "copal" is used for all resins! They do not distinguish the Miocene deposits from southern Mexico from the recent resin collected for incense today. Therefore it should not be redefined to fit some new arbitrary definition based on age. It is considered lower class only because of these commercial interests. We have Cretaceous amber (at least 65 million years old) and much Oligocene & Miocene amber, as well as Pliocene (Africa), and many others. We have no dates or specific geological information on Colombian amber. Because of it's color and hardness, we believe it may be Pliocene or Pleistocene (as is some of the Dominican amber from Cotui). Studies underway may clarify the deposits, but evidence suggests that there may be varying geological formations & ages. Mankind (depending on the anthropologist's definition thereof) has been on earth only 3-5 million years. Certainly the Olduvai specimens are fossils (both men & animals) and extremely valuable for study of human evolution. If we assume the Colombian amber is this recent, it still has extremely important value for those studying the fossils. Studies of biodiversity, biogeography, ecology, and evolution, all benefit from the scientific description of these amber fossils. Age is relative, the old man said, but old is not necessarily better. To call the Colombian material anything other than amber is a misnomer! Logically, we should just call everything "resin", with qualifying adjectives of origin or geological formation. I doubt that this would be acceptable to most "amber" dealers!

A friend of mines father found this washed up on a beach many years ago. We think it may be amber but we are looking for confirmation. He has done a few basic tests and he thinks it is amber over copal. Has many insect and plant inclusions, and probably weighs over 20 lbs. Anyone able to confirm this? Is there a way we can easily, definitively find out if this is amber? Thanks coin pictured is a US quarter.

I found a great specimen in burmite amber, including a neuropteran eclosing from its larval case. The larva ('ant-lion') can be seen clinging to the leaf, and the adult form was captured emerging; Its wings have yet to expand, etc. and this is a genuine piece of Cretaceous burmite. It shat 3x after eclosing, and there's a homopteran & coleopteran also captured inside. Besides being spectacularly beautiful and crazy timing, I can't seem to find any other instances of such "metamorphosis in the act" in the fossil record... Certainly nothing 100 Mya, with a showy lacewing, and in such clearcut detail. Even the grass(?) is partly preserved where the larval form clung. Any thoughts, pointers, points of reference? Can anyone possibly identify the subfamily or genus? Aquatic or terrestrial "ant-lion"? The images are purely for reference/informational purposes in this forum (not my own), and thanks for any helpful discussion.

Hi All: Does anyone know about herps preserved in amber? I've got a specimen from Baltic amber that's partial---head and leg with digits. It seems to be particularly well-preserved, so much so that all the details of the eye and digits, scales, etc. look incredible. Is it possible to nail it down to genus (or at least family) from the limited specimen? And how common is it for lizard specimens from Baltic amber to have such near-perfect fixation? Here's one photo attached, and (for the moment at least) I've got it on eBay for more photos and provenience details etc. If it turns out to be something less-than-common taxonomically then I should say it would be more honorable to take down the post...

Please help me to identify if my necklace is Amber . Thank you.

On the evening of september 16th. 2013, right @ dark, Amber fossil resin was discovered for the first time ever in Henderson county,TN. This discovery was made by myself. On the afternoon of september 20th. 2013, i discovered a specimen of Amber that my wildest dreams had never imagined! Hahhaaa....yea!!! It snatched away the previous state record sized specimen from the late (& great!) Professor Bruce Wade, like it wasn't even there! His record specimen was about a inch and a half in diameter, and it stood for 99 years until i came along on that fateful day! It is an honor for my name and accomplishments to even be mentioned in the same paragraph as mr. Wade's.....here's to you Bruce!!! The sept.20th. specimen has rough demensions of about 4in×3in×2in thick., and a lovely red color. It's exact weight is 149.2 grams, or 5.263 oz. Needless to say, i went straight awol crazy after finding that!.......so......the story doesn't end here! No sir!.....was struck down w/ the worst case of "Amber-Fever" the world has ever seen! (still haven't been able to shake it off) so there i was hunting in the middle of the pouring rain on the afternoon of nov. 22 nd. 2013 when the magic happened again. Found the largest Amber specimen i've ever seen in my life. It's about the size of a hamburger. (Robble-Robble! ). So, barely 2 months after breaking the state record, & before it could even be documented.....i broke my own record......here's to you Bruce Wade! Rest in peace Brother! These discoveries of mine i have for the most part been relatively secretive about. Since finding the wonderful objects, i have began to actively work with a prestigious University and two intellectuals that it is truely an honor to meet. I must for present remain somewhat secretive about sites/locations/time periods/ stratigraphy/lithology......ect., ect. Because revealing that information will jeopardize their work, and i could never do that. If i like it or not,it is the way it has to be until all has been finished. This experience has taught me that patience is truely a virtue, good science doesn't happen overnight,but painfully takes an untold amount of months....but, it just has to be that way. But when all is finally completed, Henderson county and the great state of Tennessee can take pride in their true-blue "native son", and the wonderful things that lie right in their back yard. Praise YAHVEH!

Hello, I am new to this forum. I'm an evolutionary ecologist, and used to working on living organisms, but this is so well-preserved it might as well be alive! What I'm nearly sure you're looking at is a fossilized pupating butterfly (chrysalis). You can see the silk lines it attached to the leaf, as well as much of the leaf itself. This would be what one would call a "pre-pupa", but it's already starting to look very chrysalis-ish. It certainly looks papilionid, perhaps lycaenid based on size and morphology? What strikes me is both the rarity and incredible beauty of this find if it is what I think it is. Any thoughts?? Is this the only chrysalis known in the fossil record? It's from Baltic amber, straight from the mines to an collector's hands (and now my own.) Looking forward to replies.

This Monday morning about 10:00, The alarms went down in The Tennessee River Museum,external frame, retaining clips, and glass plate removed to the exhibit which housed Mr. Wade's famously historic Specimen of Amber. That day had been prearranged & was preparatory for a Meeting in Nashville the next day. I was actually allowed to remove the specimen out of the display, privately inspect, take measurements of, and photograph it. What an amazing feeling it was to actually roll it around in my hand and closely view it in detail...I will always remember it. For those who may not know, that piece of Amber was the first recorded specimen in North America (!) To contain an Insect inclusion. As Scientific material, it is over 100 years old...in the Paleobotanical world, it's a Grand Slam. And in my mind, it's historical record achievement combined with it's contribution to science and continuous documented history......well, it surely must be such a unique thing that a monetary value must can't be placed on it...it's like the Liberty Bell man.I would argue it to be an iconic piece of American History at any rate. Here I present to you the best photos I could (sorry about image quality) of the specimen. My eyewitness testimony may perhaps be credible enough to resolve a few issues regarding what the inclusion(s) appears like..to the naked eye at least. Some recordings speak of a "whole" inscect, others say only a wing is contained in it, while it is also recorded to have disarticulated remains in the form of a wing and ,two body sections ( best I remember). I did notice 3 different inclusions in the piece. One of the Two key holders to the cases in the Museum told me he couldn't remember the specimen ever coming out of the case!And it had been so long he couldn't remember how many years it had been on display.this first pic is a historic photograph for Tennessee,if nothing more, but may be elevated to a higher status in the future. It is Gwynneth Marie Welch, my daughter, holding Bruce Wade's specimen in her right hand, and in her left hand lays a specimen of from our recoveries which contains two "whole" insects from the Cretaceous, a first for Tennessee. My expertise in insects being minimal, I can only relate one looks like a nat and the other a mosquito. Other inclusions occurring in the specimen, bubbles, ect. Perhaps they may turn out new to science...a dream come true. At any rate, enjoy these photos of Wade's specimen, they aren't the best perhaps, but there really isn't that many pictures floating around on the internet to view the specimen either. I have another post to make about similar connected events that will also be made today

Good morning all, we have recently found this in a local river and are very curious as to what it could be.. we initially thought that it was petrifies wood or a cross section of a pine cone.. but we are newbies and don't really have a clue.. we have had a really good look online and still have no clue. if anyone has any suggestions we would love to know your thoughts.. its approximately 2 inchs x 1 inch.. I have taken a pic from both sides. so you can see the resin/sap/amber running all the way through.. any knews is good knews.. please help..