For a long time, South American amber deposits lacked one thing, and one thing in particular: insects.
But a study conducted in September 2025 Connection Earth and environment describes the first amber deposits in South America, which include insects from the Cretaceous period (about 143–66 million years ago).
The deposits found in Ecuador include a mixture of insects, springtails, spiders and plants, painting a picture of the resin-rich forests of South America about 112 million years ago, when the supercontinent Gondwana began to break apart.
Cretaceous amber
dx) Small and medium-sized pieces of amber, formed from resin released from trunks or branches in air conditions, are rare, but some of them contain bio-inclusions.
(Image by Shorty Delclos, X. etc.)
Amber holds a variety of things—from insects and spiders to spores and pollen—that aren't always preserved in the fossil record.
These traps were found in amber from as much as 230 years agobut almost all Cretaceous “bioinclusions” appeared in amber from the Northern Hemisphere up to this point, obscuring the environments and ecosystems from the south.
“Since the Cretaceous period, such 'bioinclusions' have been known almost exclusively from sites in the Northern Hemisphere,” said Monica Solórzano-Krämer, study author and scientist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt. press release. “Our understanding of the biodiversity and ecosystems of the Southern Hemisphere during this period,” the arthropod specialist added in a press release, “is therefore very limited.”
Read more: What are fossils and where are they most found?
Study of South American amber
To fill this gap in the fossil record, Solórzano-Kremer and a team of researchers turned to amber from the Hollin Formation in eastern Ecuador. This sedimentary rock formation consists of two types of amber, or fossilized resin, about 112 million years old, which has hardened among the roots of trees underground or among the trunks and branches of trees above ground as a result of the resin hardening in the air.
By isolating 21 bioinclusions from about 60 samples of air-frozen amber, the team identified a number of insect bodies and body parts, one collemma, one web, and an assortment of plant spores and pollen, almost all of which were well preserved. While insect fossils come from five orders of insects, including Diptera (flies), Coleoptera (beetles), and Hymenoptera (ants and wasps), fossilized webs come from orb-spinning species that spun their webs in a circular or spiral shape.
Chalk “time capsule”
A) Diptera; b) Diptera; V) Diptera; G) Trichoptera; e) Coleoptera; G) Coleoptera; hour) Hymenoptera; I) Hymenoptera.
(Image by Shorty Delclos, X. etc.)
Taken together, the fossils suggest that the forests of South America were warm and wet during the Cretaceous period, when South America began to separate from Gondwanaland.
“Our results suggest wet conditions,” Solórzano-Kremer said in a press release. “We propose that 112 million years ago, Equatorial Gondwana contained a wet, densely forested habitat that was already characterized by flowering plants.”
In fact, the team also analyzed the amber itself, as well as its inclusions, identifying its source as something similar to the Araucaria tree. This type of tree will thrive in the same environment that suits the insects, springtails and spiders that can be seen in the amber, still stuck there after 112 million years.
“The newly discovered amber deposit is of critical importance for paleontology,” Solórzano-Krämer added in a press release, emphasizing the importance of the team’s research. “This is not only direct evidence of a resin-rich forest ecosystem, but also of diverse arthropods in the Early Cretaceous. Amber and its inclusions allow us to open a 'time capsule' for the study of Southern Hemisphere biodiversity and ecosystems.”
Read more: Deep-sea amber deposits may indicate massive 116-million-year-old tsunami
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