The discovery of amber in Ecuador’s Amazon forest, which contains a wealth of preserved fossils of wasps, midges, flies, beetles, and other insects, provides insight into a South American ecosystem that was teeming with life 112 million years ago, during the dinosaur era.
Amber is tree resin that has fossilized. Amber can occasionally contain bioinclusions, which are creatures, fungus, and plants that became stuck in the sticky substance before it solidified and subsequently petrified.
Bioinclusions of insects and even a portion of a spider’s web were found in the amber fragments that researchers discovered in a quarry close to the town of Archidona in Ecuador’s Napo Province. In the adjacent mud, fossilized plant remnants were discovered.
