Washington – Scientists have discovered prehistoric insects preserved in amber for the first time in South America, providing a new glimpse of life on Earth at a time when flowering plants have just began to diversify and spread all over the world.
Many samples in a sandstone quarry in Ecuador 112 million years ago, said Fabiani Herrera, the fossil plants at the field museum in Chicago and the co -author of the study. Publishing Thursday In the Earth and Environment Communications Magazine.
Almost all known Amber sediments from the past 130 million years David Grimaldi, an insect scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, which did not participate in this discovery, said that it was a “mystery” in the northern hemisphere, and it was a long time ago “a mystery”, as scientists found a few in the southern regions that consisted one day from the continent.
This represents the first time that researchers have defined old beetles, flies, ants, and wasps in the resin triggers in South America, which were also not involved in the new study.
“The cutting of amber are small windows in the past,” said Perez de la Fuente.
Researchers discovered hundreds of amber fragments, some of which contain In Ecuador This is on the edge of what is today the Amazon basin.
Herrera said the rainforests today is very different from what the dinosaurs wander around. Based on the analysis of fossils in amber, the old rainforests contained types of fern and pine, including an unusual monkey gas tree, which no longer grow in the Amazon.
“It was a different type of forest,” Herrera said.
Amber deposits were previously known to geologists and miners who worked in the Genoveva quarry. The co -author of the study heard Carlos Jarmello at the Smithsonian Institute for Equatorial Research for the first time about them about a decade and began to find the exact position, with the help of geological field notes.
“I went there and realized that this place was amazing,” said Jaramilo. “There is a lot of amber in the mines,” which is more clear in the open quarry, which was hidden under dense layers of vegetation.
Researchers will continue to analyze amber to learn more about the biological diversity of the chalk era-including insects that have contributed to the development through feeding on flowering plants. “The amber tends to preserve the small things,” Grimaldi said.
“It is the time when the relationship between flowering plants and insects has started,” said Perez de la Fenti. “It turns out that this is one of the most successful partnerships in nature.”
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