Sampling the insects of the amber forest

Amber, which is fossilized tree resin, is full of surprises. The tail of a feathered dinosaur was recently recovered from mid-Cretaceous (∼99 Ma) amber from Myanmar (1), and anole lizards in Miocene Dominican amber (2) showed that lizard communities have persisted for at least 16 My. Carnivorous plants of the family Roridulaceae, presently confined to South Africa, have been discovered in Eocene amber from the Baltic (3). The great majority of...