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So a little while back I had the fun of coming into a bunch of Baltic amber with inclusions. I pretty much just looked at the bag of pieces and said, "Wow, that's pretty neat!" Then I promptly set them down on one of my display cases ...and proceeded to forget almost entirely about their existence. Tonight my son and I decided to bust out our cheap-o USB microscope to see just what kind of inclusions we had. The photo quality is abysmal to say the least, but one series of photos we took contains what I am entirely convinced is not only the stuff of nightmares, but also must be nothing other than the larval form of Cthulhu. I am posting this in the ID section not because I expect someone to be able to ID it, but rather in the off chance that someone might just happen to know what it is. ID or not, I will go to sleep at night knowing that this critter is locked safely away in amber, and is thus not capable of feasting on my fluids while I slumber.

Hi everyone, what animal is it? It looks like a gecko, 2mm long. this is the best picture

Hi Its Jimmy Can anyone tell me is it possible for red pollen and green leaves to be preserved in amber? Here are the pics I took today. Any comments are much appreciated. I guess I am wondering if it still has color perhaps it still could have DNA? Jimmy

Dear friends, This time i'd like to show something big, as for Baltic amber - If inclusion got 22mm - its a monster ! And especially plant in this condition is very very rare becouse plants often died on resin surface and also they are often totally oxidised becouse of being close to surface or partially in amber and partially on surface. Extinct Glyptostrobus europaeus 22mm is a museum quality example, i was confirm ID with great specialist, author of books about Baltic Ambers - Carsten Grohn. He said to me - .. What a shame Personally i love botanical inclusions, they are much more rare as i said but also showing how was looks like "amber forest" more than 40 millions years ago. Sadly i cant upload more pictures in this way but i dont want cut them and upload to galery becouse quality gonna be bad. Have a nice watching Artur PS - I am sorry for my sad english.

Dear Friends, This time i'd like to show amazing Thuja Cone Inclusion from Baltic Amber. Cupressaceae Family Amazing Preservation after more than 40 million years. Amber weight - 2.8 gram Amber size - 3.3 cm / 3 cm / 0.5 cm Inclusion ~ 0.35 cm More soon Cheers, Artur

Researchers identify evidence of oldest orchid fossil on record Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, May 3, 2017 http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/may/researchers-identify-evidence-oldest-orchid-fossil-record https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170504093216.htm Poinar, G. and Rasmussen, F.N., 2017. Orchids from the past, with a new species in Baltic amber. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 183(3), pp.327-333. DOI: 10.1093/botlinnean/bow018 https://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/article-abstract/183/3/327/3092413/Orchids-from-the-past-with-a-new-species-in-Baltic Yours, Paul H.

This is male mosquito from baltic amber 40-50 million years. This picture was took from a microscope at 40x magnification. Can you guys help me know more about it's Taxonomy.

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!

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...

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.

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I found this fossil yesterday along the southern beach of the Baltic's Luebeck Bay. It looks like a shell. I would love to know more precisely what it is. Thanks, Tina (the ruler is in centimeters) Top: Bottom: Hinge edge: Front edge: One side: Other side:

Pertaining to various threads recently about insect inclusions in Baltic amber and the possibilities for faking, I thought you may be interested in the attached paper. It’s not widely known in the fossil community that the sellers of this material (especially those in the jewellery trade) have for many years been autoclaving the material to improve its colour and clarity. An autoclave is a steam oven that functions a bit like a large pressure cooker, typically used in hospitals for sterilizing surgical instruments. One of the spin-offs from this practice is that there has been a dramatic increase in the availability of Baltic material containing insects reaching the fossil community because it is now being widely applied to cheaper (and often younger) layered amber. This extract from Christel Hoffeins’ paper (published last year): “The prices for trade quantities of amber have increased year by year, so many companies have started to treat large quantities of the so-called “Schlauben” or “sklejka”, a cheaper quality of raw layered amber. Layered amber was formed by successive resin flows outside the bark of the amber tree, sometimes up to 100 in large samples, and the surface of each layer was as sticky as flypaper. The percentage of inclusions is higher than normally found in unlayered amber pieces. Schlauben are very brittle and cannot be cut for beads or other products. But after treatment in an autoclave the layers are permanently bound, and can then be cut and trimmed without difficulty or loss of prized material. A side-effect of clarifying and Schlauben processing is the large amount of autoclaved inclusion material available on the market.” The paper describes the process, what happens to the amber and what happens to the inclusions with some interesting comment of the difficulties this may create for insect identification in specimens that have been purchased rather than found. Baltic Amber - Autoclave Treatment & Effect on Insect Inclusions.pdf