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Parasite Wasp in Amber
Photograph courtesy PNAS and Matthias Svojtka
Perfectly preserved in an amber "time capsule," a tiny chalcid wasp is among 30 new discoveries that represent the first amber fossils ever found in Africa. (See x-ray pictures of otherwise "invisible" bugs encased in opaque amber.)
The prehistoric insects and plant spores became trapped in gooey tree resin in what is now central Ethiopia some 95 million years ago, reports a team led by Alexander Schmidt of the University of Göttingen in Germany.
The organisms date back to an evolutionary period when the types of insects that are common today first started appearing, the team writes in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Related: "Ancient Praying Mantis Found in Amber.")
This tiny wasp, for example, is one of the earliest known parasitic species—known for laying their eggs in the grubs of other insects, such as moths and beetles, which then get eaten from the inside out when the young wasps hatch. (Related: "Bugs Cuddle Up to Dead Comrades for Protection.")
—James OwenPublished April 5, 2010
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"Immaculate" Wasp
Photograph courtesy PNAS and Matthias Svojtka
Measuring just 0.4 millimeter long, this immaculately preserved wasp is among the variety of amber-encased bugs from the dino-era African forest. Other finds from the site in what is now Ethiopia include a rare web-weaving fossil spider and one of the world's oldest ants. (See a picture of the oldest known spider web found in amber.)
"The Ethiopian ant is really crucial for understanding [ant evolution] since it is the first from Gondwana," said study leader Alexander Schmidt.
Early ant fossils from Europe and Southeast Asia had suggested that the insects first arose on other prehistoric landmasses, but "the present discovery challenges this hypothesis," Schmidt said.
Published April 5, 2010
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Fossil Fern Hair
Photograph courtesy PNAS and Alexander Schmidt
The rare African amber also preserved bacteria, fungi, and plant remains from the Cretaceous period forest, such as this star-shaped hair from a fern species that sapped nutrients from the trees on which it grew.
The amber was formed when the forest, in what is now Ethiopia, was still mostly made up of conifers. But newly emerging flowering trees "are evidenced by cuticles in the amber and by pollen grains in the amber-bearing sediment," said study leader Alexander Schmidt.
Flowering plants "evolved very late in the Earth's history, but then they developed very fast," he added.
Published April 5, 2010
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Ancient Thunder Fly
Photograph courtesy PNAS and Matthias Svojtka
A thrips, or thunder fly, encased in amber is among the newly discovered Ethiopian amber fossils. Only the third fossil thrips ever found, the woodland insect lived when Africa was part of a giant supercontinent called Gondwana.
The African amber discoveries offer a window into a period of major biological change triggered by the appearance of flowering plants, said study leader Alexander Schmidt of the University of Göttingen. (Find out how flowering plants changed the world in National Geographic magazine.)"The Ethiopian amber forest grew in a time when [flowering trees] diversified and changed the terrestrial ecosystems," Schmidt wrote in an email.
The blooming of these new forests spurred the evolution of insects, amphibians, early mammals, and other animals that "were able to form new niches and diversified rapidly," he said.
Published April 5, 2010
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Ethiopian Amber
Photograph courtesy PNAS and Matthias Svojtka
This chunk of Ethiopian amber, first identified at a market in Adis Abeba (Addis Ababa) in 2002, comes from a site that's Africa's first known source of the fossilized tree sap.
The amber, which is unlike any found outside Africa, may have been created by a previously unknown variety of resin-producing tree, scientists say.
Studies of the animals and plant pieces trapped in the African amber will be crucial to understanding insect life in the prehistoric forests of Gondwana, since small bugs don't fossilize in rock, said team member Matthias Svojtka, a paleontologist at the University of Vienna. (Related: "Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber.")
Published April 5, 2010
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