Description
At first sight the embedment of aquatic insects in Baltic amber seems to be contradictive, as the insects live in water and amber originated from resin of extinct trees that grew in a Fennoscandian montane forest approximately ca. 40-50 million years ago. About 25% of all animals found in amber are aquatic insects. The larvae of these amphibious forms lived in water whereas adults were frequently terrestrial and capable of flying. The Tertiary “amber forest” apparently contained a great amount of lentic waters, flood plains and flowing waters. The resin was washed out of dead wood and streams and rivers transported it to the sea where it became fossilized into amber. Without water, the genesis of amber would be impossible. The high number of aquatic insects in amber is connected with the process of its fossilization. As if in a complex “paleontological jigsaw puzzle” amber inclusions are combined together so that the whole mosaic of the nature of 40-50 million years ago can be reconstructed.
