(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists at Oregon State University have been studying ancient Dominican amber. They made an incredible discovery.
They found in one of the pieces of resin that hardened almost 30 million years ago an incredibly rare fossil flower along with a wasp. The result is a true work of art.
The discovery is unique due to the fact that the resin contains two incredibly rare fossils at the same time. In a piece of ancient resin, a very ancient flower, as well as a parasitic wasp, froze forever. It is worth paying attention to the fact that unique amber was discovered in the Dominican Republic.
The frozen flower had an incredibly long stem and belonged to the Euphorbiaceae family. Today, its representatives can be found in all countries of the world. For example, only in the tropical regions of America there are about 1800 species of these plants.
At the same time, fossil flowers that belong to the Euphorbia family are considered very rare. For the entire period of observation, experts have discovered only two such fossils.
The first ancient flower was found in sedimentary deposits in the state of Tennessee, in the United States. An interesting point is that the discovered plants belong to different species, but are included in the same family.
The flower, which was found in amber, was called Plukenetia minima by experts. Scientists managed to find out that the plant died already being mature.
A large wasp froze next to the flower, which experts also attributed to a completely new species, but at the same time it was described a couple of years ago. The species was named Hambletonia dominicana. Experts believe that these encertid wasps attacked other insects.
The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Historical Biology. They noted that at the time of hitting the amber, the flower had fully blossomed. It contains four seed capsules that have begun to ripen. A fly larva was found in one capsule.
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