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Scientists Find Amber With Insects Dating Back 120 Million Years in Ecuador, the First Time in South America. Research Helps Understand Climate, Forests, and Fauna of the Cretaceous.
An unprecedented finding marks science in South America: amber fossils with insects have been discovered for the first time on the continent. The announcement was made in September, following a study published in the journal Nature, involving researchers from several countries, including Brazilian Marcelo Carvalho from the National Museum.
The material was located in Ecuador and is about 120 million years old, dating back to the Cretaceous period.
What Makes the Find Special
The major novelty is that fossils of amber with insects have never been recorded in such large quantities in South America before.
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Previously, this type of material was primarily found in the Northern Hemisphere.
The study reveals details of the flora and fauna from a time when the continents were separating and the South Atlantic was beginning to form.
Marcelo Carvalho, a specialist in palynology — the science that analyzes pollen traces to understand Earth’s history — emphasized to CNN that the discovery is essential for reconstructing the past.
“The great importance of the work is being able to understand what the flora was like at that moment, what the forests were like at that moment,” he explained.
Connection with Cinema and Popular Imagery
The find has also sparked comparisons with the classic film Jurassic Park, in which scientists extract DNA from dinosaurs using insects preserved in amber.
In real life, however, this scenario is still not possible: the found material does not contain usable genetic fragments, as time has completely degraded that information.
Even without the possibility of “reviving” extinct species, the scientific value remains enormous.
Amber acts as a time capsule, preserving details of insects such as flies, beetles, ants, and even fragments of spider webs.
Climate and Evolution of Forests
The fossils indicate that, during the Cretaceous, the climate in the equatorial region was more humid and the so-called intertropical convergence zone was beginning to form, an atmospheric system that still influences the Amazon and other tropical areas.
“We can say with greater certainty that the climate was more humid, in this context in which this forest kind of developed,” Carvalho stated.
The resins that gave rise to amber were produced by araucarias, trees that are still present on the continent and played a central role in the formation of ancient forests.
International Collaboration
The research involved specialists from countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Germany, Panama, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, in addition to Brazil and Ecuador.
The work was led by Spanish researcher Xavier Delclòs and involved around 60 fossilized samples.
The insects found are considered unique witnesses to history, having lived alongside the dinosaurs and being preserved in the resin that later transformed into amber millions of years later.
Significance for South America
This find reinforces the importance of South America in studies regarding Earth’s history.
Until now, amber fossils from this period were virtually unknown in the region, limiting the understanding of the formation of tropical forests and climate evolution.
With the discovery, a new field of research opens up that can connect the past and present, revealing how the ecosystems that now support the greatest biodiversity on the planet were structured.
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