Researchers find prehistoric creatures in amber from Indian coal mine
27 Oct 2010
A coal mine in western India has turned up a rich haul of prehistoric life forms, mainly insects, encased in tree resin. An international team of fossil hunters led by Jes Rust, a paleontologist at Bonn University, discovered the amber from Cambay Shale in Gujarat, which makes it the largest amber collections on record.
The tiny animals were entombed in the fossilised tree resin some 52 million years ago, before the Indian subcontinent pushed into the Asian landmass to produce the Himalayan mountain range.
Rust said the creatures, including ancient bees, spiders, termites, gnats, ants and flies, have been preserved in remarkably good condition considering their age. The team has identified more than 700 arthropods - a group of animals that includes insects, crustaceans and arachnids.
Rust told the Guardian newspaper that the insects had been so well preserved that it was like having the complete dinosaur, not just the bones. He added that all the surface details on their bodies and wings were visible.
Insects on tree barks or forest floor may be trapped in resin flowing from the tree. The resin then hardens into a translucent yellow material that preserves them.
The amber is the oldest evidence with scientists about tropical forests in Asia. The amber has been linked to a family of hardwood trees called dipterocarpaceae, which makes up around 80 per cent of the forest canopy in Southeast Asia. Fossilised wood from the trees was found alongside the amber deposits.
According to Rust, much of India may have been covered in forests at the time of the formation of the amber.
The trapped insects provided a revealing snapshot of life in India prior to the collision with Asia. At one time, India was attached to Africa but was separated around 160 million years ago and for the following 100 million years, India's landmass moved towards Asia at around 20 cm a year.
Over the period of its isolation, scientists say, India could have evolved unique flora and fauna, but the encased insects suggest this did not happen.
