On this page you may find some of the ambers of my collection that show particularities worth consideration and discussion.

  All pictures may be downloaded and used freely.

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Birth of a worm

Part of my collection consists in hundreds of pieces from amber necklaces.  Many of them are still to be examined, all, however, contain some small insect or some other “strange” object.  Recently I examined a piece of amber I believed to contain a fragment of wood.  My curiosity increased while I was polishing it and at last I was deeply moved. It won’t happen often to see a small worm ( egg 0,5mm – worm 1,1mm ) hardly slipped out of his egg and imprisoned in a piece of amber.

General view	Directly illuminated	Operculum

Hereafter part of the interesting letter by Prof. Eugenio Ragazzi:

“The evidence that the animal was able to get in the still liquid mass, as you may see from the kind of cavity around the body, gives further information on the process of fossilization of the amber. Most probably the liquid contained in the egg allowed the worm to survive long enough to be able to slip outside the egg. Maybe it hatched before time, trying desperately to flee from hypoxia, as exchange of gasses  with the outside was no longer possible.”

Mating midges - Rare.

Amber 567 Diptera Nematocera: Chironomidae

Amber 568 Diptera Nematocera: Cecidomyiidae

Amber 699 Diptera Brachycera: Dolichopodidae

Amber 700 Diptera Nematocera: Chironomidae

Amber 893 Diptera Nematocera: Chironomidae

Eggs

The eggs are a quite rare finding, a few times they scattered in the amber other times are near the female which laid them.

Amber 130 Amber containing several insects of various kinds and with two groups of eggs

Amber 839 Diptera Brachycera with eggs.

Trichoptera with eggs. Amber given to the Museum Of Natural History Of Bergamo.

Amber 902 Trichoptera with eggs.

Amber 578 Coleoptera with 2 eggs.

Amber 312 Diptera Brachycera with eggs

Amber 094  Nematocera: Chironomidae with eggs

Parasitism

A  parasite is an organism living at the expense of some other.

Presumably  the oldest parasites can be found in amber and are mainly mite (arachnida: mite)

In baltic amber mite can be found frequently, however, seldom as parasites. Probably you need a sharp eye and a very good microscope to detect these.

My collection comprises various pieces containing mite, but I find it difficult to take pictures. The tiny mites (0.2-1mm) are nearly always hidden by the body of their host.

Amber 121 Hemiptera with mite

Amber 511 Diptera with mite

Amber 59 Diptera with mite

Looking closely at these pictures you may wonder how these insects managed to survive with a mite on their wing or their abdomen. Maybe they fell into the resin for their very difficulty in piloting

You will note that these parasite stayed firmly attached to their hosts and did not abandon them to gain safety.  

Amber 583 Diptera with mite

Amber 250 Diptera with mite on the back

Amber 612 Diptera with mite on the leggs

Amber 790 Diptera with 2 mites: wing and abdomen

Amber 622 Recently I found a quite unusual example of parasitism amongst my collection. The poor diptera you see in the picture below has been literally invaded by mites, only the part shown in the picture counts 10.

It is quite easy to find empty bubbles in baltic amber, whereas they seldom  contain water with mobile bubbles of air.

It is quite easy to find empty bubbles in baltic amber, whereas they seldom  contain water with mobile bubbles of air.

The picture show an oblong formation, in three parts, containing a small bubble that travels from one sector to the next according the inclination of the amber.

This allows for the following consideration:

- the presence of water is due to damp surrounding (rain, dew).  

- the resin must have dropped down abundantly from the tree, running in parallel to the main  axis of the bubbles and it must have been quite fluid in order to be able to include the water that otherwise would have evaporated.

- if  you look at the photo the direction of the flow must have been from left to right (really from top to bottom) as in fact the bigger bubble seems “flattened” and shrinked due to the adhesivenessof the resin on its way down.

Hidden insect

twig with insect (amber 41x20 mm)

Recently I bought two pieces of amber showing  a rather big cylindrical formation, red brown and opaque .  I was guaranteed that they are twigs trapped in the resin. As they weren’t expensive I bought them, though sceptical. Apart a larva and some stellate hairs in one and two dipteria in the other they contain nothing interesting, and the surface of the twig shows nothing special.

So one day I decided to treat the two pieces with distilled water,and slowly the twigs became transparent and one the amber set free its hidden prisonner, the hollow twig had trapped a rather big insect. I have not yet identified the insect that can be seen only in part, but I presume that the leg belongs to a hemipteron. Yet I am not  convinced that the cylinders are twigs. I think a more ancient resin casting.

Mass slaughter

Amber 0147 - 37x25mm   Diptera Nematocera: Sciaridae 52 ex.

Amber 148 - 28x25 mm   Diptera Nematocera: Sciaridae 58 ex.

Amber 0232 Many acari and pollens

Amber 0310 12 Diptera Nematocera

Amber 0580 Many Diptera Nematocera: Sciaridae

Amber 846   15 Diptera Sciaridae