Insects in amber cast light on ancient Amazon

Scientists have discovered prehistoric insects preserved in amber for the first time in South America, providing a fresh glimpse into life on Earth at a time when flowering plants were just beginning to diversify and spread around the world.

- CHRISTINA LARSON

MÓNICA SOLÓRZANO-KRAEMER Associated Press A FLY from the Cretaceous period is preserved in amber taken from a sandstone quarry in Ecuador.

Many of the specimens found at a sandstone quarry in Ecuador date to 112 million years ago, said Fabiany Herrera, curator of fossil plants at the Field Museum in Chicago and coauthor of the study published Sept 18 in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

Almost all known amber deposits from the last 130 million years have been in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s long been “an enigma” that scientists have found few in southern regions that once constituted the supercontinent Gondwana, said David Grimaldi, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the discovery.