INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM - AMBEREXPOamberif.amberexpo.pl/mtgsa2010/library/File/AMBER...first edition, AMBERIF has been accompanied by scientific seminars, which were initiated by Prof.

AMBERIF 2018

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

AMBER. SCIENCE AND ART

Abstracts

22-23 MARCH 2018

Jewellery and Gemstones

AMBERIF 2018International Fair of Amber,

Jewellery and Gemstones

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

AMBER. SCIENCE AND ART

Abstracts

Editors: Ewa Wagner-Wysiecka · Jacek Szwedo · Elżbieta SontagAnna Sobecka · Janusz Czebreszuk · Mateusz Cwaliński

This International Symposium was organisedto celebrate the 25th Anniversary

of the AMBERIF International Fair of Amber,Jewellery and Gemstones

and the 20th Anniversary of the Museum of AmberInclusions at the University of Gdansk

GDAŃSK, POLAND22-23 MARCH 2018

ORGANISERSGdańsk International Fair Co., Gdańsk, PolandGdańsk University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk, PolandUniversity of Gdańsk, Faculty of Biology, Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions,

Gdańsk, PolandUniversity of Gdańsk, Faculty of History, Gdańsk, PolandAdam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Institute of Archaeology, Poznań, PolandInternational Amber Association, Gdańsk, Poland

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Dr Faya Causey, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USAProf. Mitja Guštin, Institute for Mediterranean Heritage, University of Primorska, SloveniaProf. Sarjit Kaur, Amber Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USADr Rachel King, Curator of the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, UKProf. Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz, Museum of the Earth in Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, PolandProf. Joseph B. Lambert, Department of Chemistry, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USAProf. Vincent Perrichot, Géosciences, Université de Rennes 1, FranceProf. Bo Wang, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Prof. Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz – Honorary ChairDr hab. inż. Ewa Wagner-Wysiecka – Scientific Director of SymposiumProf. Janusz CzebreszukProf. Jacek SzwedoDr Anna Sobecka

SCIENTIFIC PARTNERS

Palaeoentomological Section of the Polish Entomological Society

The Museum of the Earth in Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences

The Malbork Castle Museum

Museum of Gdańsk

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Ewa Rachoń – Amberif Project DirectorDr Elżbieta Sontag, Dr inż. Natalia Łukasik, M.A. Mateusz Cwaliński, Michał KosiorAgnieszka Uklejewska – Secretary of the Organizing Committee

Published by the Gdańsk International Fair Co. (MTG SA), Gdańsk, Poland, 2018

ISBN 978-83-908187-1-9

Foreword

For 25 years, AMBERIF has been gathering people of common passion: Baltic amber (=succinite). Since itsfirst edition, AMBERIF has been accompanied by scientific seminars, which were initiated by Prof. BarbaraKosmowska-Ceranowicz and Wiesław Gierłowski. In its silver jubilee year 2018, the seminar is anInternational Symposium, organized under the supervision of AMBERIF Project Director Ewa Rachoń.

Science and art have been coming together from times immemorial. They are like a good marriage,supporting and complementing each other, providing creativity and inspiration, opening new perspectivesand opportunities every day. Baltic amber, but also other fossil resins of the world, is a perfect example of alink between science and art. It is because succinite in a magical way simply attracts—not only those whojust love the secret beauty of amber, but also scientists and artists.

During the two days of the Symposium (22-23 March 2018), we would like to present, in light of the latestscientific reports, the dynamic development and progress of the research areas related to amber in the fieldof natural sciences, exact sciences and humanities. Four thematic sessions, which will be chaired by membersof the Scientific Committee of the Symposium, with the honorary Chair of the Symposium, Professor BarbaraKosmowska-Ceranowicz (Museum of the Earth in Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences), include lectures andposter sessions. Our invitation as keynote lecturers was accepted by: Prof. Faya Causey (Getty ResearchInstitute, USA), Prof. Sarjit Kaur (Laboratory of Amber Research, Faculty of Chemistry, M. Vassar College,USA), Prof. Joseph B. Lambert (Faculty of Chemistry, University of Trinity, USA), Prof. Vincent Perrichot(Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Rennes 1, France).

Session “Life traces in amber” chaired by Prof. Jacek Szwedo and Dr Elżbieta Sontag (Faculty of Biology,Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions, University of Gdańsk) is dedicatedto the traces of ancient organisms and their activities, preserved in fossil resins. Its main topic is the inclusionof insects and other arthropods, plants, fungi and other organisms. This session is also a celebration of the20th Anniversary of the Museum of Amber Inclusions at the University of Gdańsk.

Local and supra-regional traditions in the manufacture of amber objects among European societies of theBronze and Iron Age is the leading topic of the session “Stylistics and processing technology of amber productsin 3rd-1st millennium BC: local and interregional perspective” conducted by Prof. Janusz Czebreszuk andMateusz Cwaliński (Institute of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań). The twelve oralcommunications presented in this session will be summarized in a special final discussion.

The latest achievements in research on amber properties with the use of modern research techniques andapplications of these achievements form the main topic of the session “Highlights of amber propertiesinvestigations and current aspects of amber mining.” This part of the Symposium is also dedicated to veryimportant current problems—also environmental ones—related to the geology and extraction of amber. Thissession is under the supervision of Dr Ewa Wagner-Wysiecka and Dr Natalia Łukasik (Faculty of Chemistry,Gdańsk University of Technology).

The amazing and captivating world of myths, toposes and their representations in amber artefacts is thesubject of the session on “Myths, collections and conservation of amber,” led by Dr Anna Sobecka (Faculty ofHistory, University of Gdańsk).

Instead of a summary—“Man is unique not because he does science, and he is unique not because he does art, but because

science and art equally are expressions of his marvellous plasticity of mind” (Jacob Bronowski)

Ewa Wagner-Wysiecka

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIFE TRACES IN AMBERORAL PRESENTATIONSPERRICHOT V. From Cretaceous to Eocene: an overview of the fossiliferous amber deposits from France KEYNOTE lecture................7SONTAG E., SZWEDO J., SZADZIEWSKI R. 20 years of the Museum of Amber Inclusions at the University of Gdańsk ...................................9ROSS A.J. The remarkable palaeodiversity in Burmese amber.............................................................................................................12GARROUSTE R., CARBUCCIA B., NEL A. Insight in the Lowermost Eocene Oise amber: the collection of arthropod inclusions of

the MNHN ..............................................................................................................................................................................17XING L., MCKELLAR R.C. Recent discoveries of toothed birds and non-avian theropod remains in Cretaceous amber deposits

from Myanmar .......................................................................................................................................................................18HOFFEINS C., HOFFEINS H.W., KUTZSCHER C., BLANK S.M. Jumping to more knowledge – a new flea in Baltic amber .................................19PIELOWSKA A., SONTAG E., SZADZIEWSKI R. Haematophagous arthropods in Baltic amber.........................................................................20SIDORCHUK E. A family story told by amber inclusions (Acari: Collohmanniidae) .................................................................................21WANG B., SZWEDO J. More than expected – disparity of the Hemiptera (Insecta) in the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber .................23JIANG T., WANG B., SZWEDO J. The planthopper family Mimarachnidae (Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha) in Burmese amber....................26BRYSZ A.M. New data on Achilidae (Hemiptera: Fulgoromopha) from Myanmar amber ....................................................................28SZWEDO J., DROHOJOWSKA J., SIMON E., WĘGIEREK P. Sternorrhycha (Insecta: Hemiptera) from Burmese amber......................................29JARZEMBOWSKI E.A., ZHENG D. Dragonflies in amber from the age of the dinosaurs...............................................................................31SOSZYŃSKA-MAJ A., KRZEMIŃSKI W., KOPEĆ K. Scorpionflies (Mecoptera) in Burmese amber....................................................................34SKIBIŃSKA K., KRZEMIŃSKI W. Diversity of the family Tanyderidae in the Myanmar amber .....................................................................36ZAKRZEWSKA M., GIŁKA W. The Buchonomyiinae (Diptera: Chironomidae) from Cretaceous Burmese amber ......................................37BARANOV V., LAURINDO F. Revisiting mouthparts development in modern and fossil Chironomidae (Diptera) .....................................39ŻYŁA D. Dating fossils with molecules – innovative approach to determine the age of Baltic amber. Introduction to the

project....................................................................................................................................................................................40POSTERSCARBUCCIA B., ROLLARD C., NEL A., GARROUSTE R. The Araneae of the Lowermost Eocene Oise amber: an unexpected

palaeodiversity.......................................................................................................................................................................42JORDAN-STASIŁO W., KRZEMIŃSKI W., KANIA I., MIAZGA N. Rhabdomastix Skuse, 1980 in Eocene Baltic amber (Diptera:

Limoniidae) ............................................................................................................................................................................43KANIA I., WOJTOŃ M., KRZEMIŃSKI W., WANG B. Anisopodidae Knab, 1912 (Diptera, Nematocera) in Cretaceous Burmese amber ........44KASZYCA N., WĘGIEREK P., DEPA Ł., TASZAKOWSKI A. Invertebrates in contemporary, coniferous resins – an insight into the

ecosystem? ............................................................................................................................................................................45KRZEMIŃSKI W., KOPEĆ K., SKIBIŃSKA K., SOSZYŃSKA-MAJ A., KANIA I. Diptera Nematocera from the Myanmar amber in the

collection of the Natural History Museum ISEA PAS ..............................................................................................................47PIELIŃSKA A. From the research of the Baltic amber flora ....................................................................................................................48TISCHER M., BOJARSKI B., GORCZAK M., PAWŁOWSKA J., SZCZEPANIAK K., WRZOSEK M. The diversity of fossil fungi in Baltic amber .................49WOJTOŃ M., KANIA I., KRZEMIŃSKI W. First Mycetobia Meigen, 1818 in Cretaceous Burmese amber (Diptera, Anisopodidae) ..............49

STYLISTICS AND PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY OF AMBER PRODUCTSIN 3RD-1ST MILLENNIUM BC: LOCAL AND INTERREGIONAL PERSPECTIVE

ORAL PRESENTATIONSKAUR S., STOUT E. Elucidation of origin, age and authenticity of ambers through chemical characterization KEYNOTE lecture ..........51RAMSTAD M. Neolithic amber in Norway and social dynamics the in 3th millennium BC in Scandinavia..............................................52IRŠĖNAS M. Juodkrantė (Schwarzort) amber figurines: between north and south...............................................................................52MANASTERSKI D., KWIATKOWSKA K. Late Neolithic amber beads from Supraśl in the light of multi-faceted analysis ...............................57BUTRIMAS A., KRÓL D., OSTRAUSKIENĖ D. Amber typology of Rzucewo and West Lithuanian Late Neolithic settlements.........................61GARDIN C Typology and technology: the example of the amber productions in France during the Neolithic and Protohistory .........65DRENTH E. Late prehistoric amber from the Netherlands ....................................................................................................................65LJUŠTINA M. Amber finds in the Bronze Age of Serbia: distribution, provenance and social significance ............................................66CWALIŃSKI M. One step beyond: towards understanding amber consumption during the Bronze and Early Iron Age in

Western and Central Balkans .................................................................................................................................................67NEGRONI CATACCHIO N., GALLO V. Analysis of a few amber artifacts as chronological and cultural indicators during pre- and

protohistory in Europe ...........................................................................................................................................................67HOHENSTEIN U.T., BELLINTANI P., PAVAN F. Amber processing at the site of Campestrin (Grignano Polesine, Rovigo,

northeastern Italy) .................................................................................................................................................................70DMITROVIĆ K. Typological frame of the amber from Atenica and its relation to the neighboring area ................................................71STIPANČIĆ P. Amber in first millenium BC from Novo Mesto, Slovenia .................................................................................................72POSTERSPESKA J., KUCERA L., BEDNAR P. Ancient amber in Moravia......................................................................................................................75

HIGHLIGHTS OF AMBER PROPERTIES INVESTIGATIONSAND CURRENT ASPECTS OF AMBER MINING

ORAL PRESENTATIONSLAMBERT J.B. Molecular analysis of amber and related fossilized materials by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

KEYNOTE lecture ....................................................................................................................................................................77VAN DER WERF I.D. Recent developments in amber investigation: succinite vs. simetite......................................................................78SHASHOUA Y. Investigating the degradation of Baltic amber ................................................................................................................81ŁYDŻBA-KOPCZYŃSKA B., MENDYS A. Versatile spectroscopic approach in the investigation of cultural heritage objects .........................86MATUSZEWSKA A. Physicochemical transformations of amber illustrated by changes in the oxygen-groups range of infrared

spectra ...................................................................................................................................................................................88KUCERA L., PESKA J., BEDNAR P. Utilization of mass spectrometry for chemical analysis of amber for distinction of its origin in

various Baltic regions. ............................................................................................................................................................92KACZMARCZYK I. Baltic amber as a potential source of active agents against selected microorganisms ...............................................92KASIŃSKI J.R., SŁODKOWSKA B., KRAMARSKA R. Amber-bearing sediments of the Polish-Ukrainian border zone stratigraphic

correlation..............................................................................................................................................................................94MATSUI V., NAUMENKO U., REMEZOVA O., OKHOLINA T., VASYLENKO S., YAREMENKO O. The prognosis of amber-succinite deposits of

different age in Ukraine and their prospects of development ...............................................................................................99REMEZOVA O., MATSUI V., VASYLENKO S., KOMLIEV O. Geoecological aspects of amber mining in Ukraine...............................................104BELICHENKO O., WAGNER-WYSIECKA E. Geological production characteristic of amber deposits and finds in Ukraine.

Perspectives of identification by mid-infrared spectroscopy...............................................................................................108POSTERSBELICHENKO O., LADZHUN Y., TATARINTSEVA K. Gemological research of the «treated-color» amber.......................................................113CAI Y., BAO T. The prosperity of Tengchong Amber Market and related industries ...........................................................................114CYTRYNIAK A., ŁYDŻBA-KOPCZYŃSKA B. Micro IR and Raman spectroscopy as operative techniques in the various fossilised resins

screening..............................................................................................................................................................................115FRIEDMAN V., LAMBERT J.B., BUGARIN A., KAUR S., STOUT E. Amber in Texas..............................................................................................117KLIKOWICZ-KOSIOR A., KOSIOR M., WAGNER-WYSIECKA E. Amber Laboratory of International Amber Association - current

research activity and perspectives .......................................................................................................................................118KOMLIEV O., REMEZOVA O. Lacustrine and paludal complexes of Ukraine as amber-bearing objects ..................................................121KOSMOWSKA-CERANOWICZ B., PIELIŃSKA A. Infrared spectra of amber and other resins – results of research by Vladas Katinas,

1988 .....................................................................................................................................................................................124KOSTYASHOVA Z. The amber industry in Kaliningrad region (2007-2017): problems and prospects....................................................129KRYNYTSKA M., KOVALEVYCH L. The researches of conditions of productive thickness forming of the southern part of

Volodymyrets amber-bearing district ..................................................................................................................................134SKRZYPIEC K., KOMOSA Z., MACIOŁEK U., SOFIŃSKA-CHMIEL W. GAZDA Ł., MENDYK E. Spectral and microscopic study of Lublin amber .........138SKRZYPIEC K., KOMOSA Z., MACIOŁEK U., SOFIŃSKA-CHMIEL W., MENDYK E. The study of natural resins using AFM microscopy...................140

MYTHS, COLLECTIONS AND CONSERVATION OF AMBERORAL PRESENTATIONSCAUSEY F. Amber and Africa KEYNOTE lecture ...................................................................................................................................143GUŠTIN M. Aquileia – the centre of amber production in Roman Times............................................................................................145POLYAKOVA I.A. Collecting and displaying amber in culture and everyday life of Prussia during 16th century....................................146KING R. Sisterly Devotion Solidified: Owning the Tears of the Heliades in Renaissance Europe .......................................................147TRUSTED M.H. Baltic Ambers in Britain: a rich and diverse heritage ..................................................................................................152SOBECKA A. A new interpretation of the mythological iconography of the Malbork Casket ..............................................................153BAGUŽAITĖ-TALAČKIENĖ S. Amber artefacts of the Palanga Amber Museum Collection. Mythological parallels ...................................156PAWLĘGA E. Amber in myths, legends and folk tales. .........................................................................................................................160KRIEGSEISEN J. Amber in the Sicilian fine arts and crafts......................................................................................................................161ATTULA A. Amber. Reflections on the “political myth” of a fossil resin – The last exhibition in 1943 ................................................163JABŁOŃSKI G. The Fall of Phaeton – myth, legend or secret knowledge. An artistic hypothesis .........................................................165POSTERSADAMOWICZ R. Rebuilding and adaptation of the Great Mill in Gdańsk for the needs of a new premises of the Amber

Museum ...............................................................................................................................................................................166RATUSZNA J. Conservation of the 17th century amber altar from the Malbork Castle Museum collection.........................................166SADO A. Amber myths – today...........................................................................................................................................................167

Amberif 2018 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM “AMBER. SCIENCE AND ART” Page 7

LIFE TRACES IN AMBER

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

PERRICHOT V.

From Cretaceous to Eocene: an overviewof the fossiliferous amber deposits from France

KEYNOTE lecture

VINCENT PERRICHOT

Géosciences, Université de Rennes, Campus de Beaulieu bat. 15, 263 avenue du Général Leclerc, 35000 Rennes,France, [email protected]

The presence of amber in France was mentioned as early as in the beginning of the 18th century(Anonymous 1705), and by the early 20th century amber was reported from nearly 70 French localities ofCarboniferous to Miocene age (Lacroix 1910). Despite these early reports, the French fossil resins remainedlargely ignored by paleontologists, and it is only in the 1970s that fossil biological inclusions were firstdocumented, with approximately 70 arthropods described from two Cenomanian deposits of the Paris Basin(Schlüter 1975, 1978, 1983). However, these arthropods were found in a turbid, barely translucent amber(Figure 1), making investigation for fossil inclusions excessively difficult (Schlüter and Stürmer 1982). This andthe fact that Lacroix (1910) depicted all French fossil resins as brittle retinites, inapt to sizing and polishing,probably explain that no further work was done on French amber until more recently.

Fig. 1. Typical aspect and colours of the Cretaceous (Cenomanian) amber of the Paris Basin. Scale bar: 0.5 mm.

Two amber-rich, highly fossiliferous deposits were then discovered simultaneously in the late 1990s: theearly Eocene (Sparnacian) Oise amber in the Paris Basin (Figure 2A-B), from which more than 20.000arthropod inclusions have been reported to date (Nel et al. 1999; Nel and Brasero 2010); and the mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) Charentese amber in the Aquitain Basin (Figure 2E-F), that has yielded morethan 2.000 arthropods (Néraudeau et al. 2002; Perrichot et al. 2010). Following these discoveries, extensivefield investigations have revealed fossiliferous amber in several other historical or new outcrops acrossFrance, all restricted to the Cretaceous period. Although less abundant and diverse than in Oise andCharentese ambers, arthropods have been found in a Cenomanian amber from two localities in the Alps (SEFrance) and the Pyrenees (SW France) (Perrichot et al. 2006; Girard et al. 2013); a small but highlyfossiliferous deposit has been found in the Turonian of Vendée (NW France; Figure 2C-D) (Néraudeau et al.2017); and few arthropods have also been found in the Santonian amber of Provence (SE France) (Choufaniet al. 2013; Nel et al. 2017).

The chemical analysis of these ambers from various localities and ages indicates a succession of differentplant sources through time (Nohra et al. 2015). All Cretaceous resins originated from conifers, more

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INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM “AMBER. SCIENCE AND ART” Amberif 2018

specifically the families Araucariaceae and Cheirolepidiaceae during the Albian and Cenomanian, andCupressaceae during the Turonian and Santonian. The Eocene Oise amber was produced by an angiospermof the family Fabaceae, differing markedly from the slightly younger Baltic amber that has a coniferous origin.

Fig. 2. Representative amber samples and insect inclusions from France. A-B. Eocene amber of Oise; B. a non-bitingmidge (Diptera: Chironomidae). C-D. Turonian amber of Vendée; D. Microphorites magaliae Perrichot et Engel,2014 (Diptera: Dolichopodidae). E-F. Albian-Cenomanian amber of Charentes; F. a scelionid wasp(Hymenoptera). Scale bars: 0.5 mm.

Both Oise and Charentese ambers constitute major world deposits in terms of abundance and diversity ofinclusions, providing a rare glimpse into two ancient forest ecosystems of Western Europe. Oise amber wasproduced by legume trees growing in a semi-deciduous forest in a lacustrine to palustrine environmentof a deltaic region (Nel and Brasero 2010). Charentese amber originated from conifers growing in a marginalmarine setting, likely a mosaic of estuarine and mangrove environments (Perrichot et al. 2010).

ReferencesAnonymous. 1705. Mémoire sur l’ambre jaune. Hist. Acad. R. Sci. (Paris), 41-44.Choufani J., Perrichot V., Girard V., Garrouste R., Azar D., Nel A. 2013. Two new biting midges of the modern type from

Santonian amber of France (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), in: Azar D., Engel M.S, Jarzembowski E., Krogmann L., NelA., Santiago-Blay J. (Eds.) Insect Evolution in an amberiferous and stone alphabet. Proceedings of the 6thInternational Congress on Fossil Insects, Arthropods and Amber. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 71-95.

Girard V., Breton G., Perrichot V., Bilotte M., Le Loeuff J., Nel A., Philippe M., Thévenard F. 2013. The Cenomanianamber of Fourtou (Aude, Southern France): Taphonomy and palaeoecological implications. Ann. Paléontol. 99,301-315.

Lacroix A. 1910. Groupe des résines fossiles. Minéral. Fr. 4, 637-645.Nel A., Brasero N. 2010. Oise amber, in: Penney D. (Ed.) Biodiversity of fossils in amber from the major world deposits.

Siri Scientific Press, Manchester, 137-148.


Nel A., De Ploëg G., Dejax J., Dutheil D., De Franceschi D., Gheerbrant E., Godinot M., Hervet S., Menier J.J., Augé M.,Bignot G., Cavagnetto C., Duffaud S., Gaudant J., Hua S., Jossang A., De Lapparent F., Pozzi J.P., Paicheler J.C. RageJ.-C. 1999. Un gisement sparnacien exceptionnel à plantes, arthropodes et vertébrés (Eocène basal, MP7): LeQuesnoy (Oise, France). C. R. Acad. Sci. (IIa) 329, 65-72.

Nel A., Garrouste R., Daugeron C. 2017. Two new long-legged flies in the Santonian amber of France (Diptera:Dolichopodidae). Cret. Res. 69, 1-5.

Néraudeau D., Perrichot V., Dejax J., Masure E., Nel A., Philippe M., Moreau P., Guillocheau F., Guyot T. 2002. Unnouveau gisement à ambre insectifère et à végétaux (Albien terminal probable): Archingeay (Charente-Maritime,France). Geobios 35, 233-240.

Néraudeau D., Perrichot V., Batten D.J, Boura A., Girard V., Jeanneau L., Nohra Y.A., Polette F., Saint Martin S., SaintMartin J.P., Thomas R. 2017. Upper Cretaceous amber from Vendée, north-western France: age dating andgeological, chemical, and palaeontological characteristics. Cret. Res. 70, 77-95.

Nohra Y.A., Perrichot V., Jeanneau L., Le Pollès L., Azar D. 2015. Chemical characterization and botanical origin ofFrench ambers. J. Nat. Prod. 78, 1284-1293.

Perrichot V, Nel A, Guilbert E, Néraudeau D. 2006. Fossil Tingoidea (Heteroptera: Cimicomorpha) from FrenchCretaceous amber, including Tingidae and a new family, Ebboidae. Zootaxa, 1203, 57-68.

Perrichot V., Néraudeau D., Tafforeau P. 2010. Charentese amber, in: Penney D. (Ed.) Biodiversity of fossils in amberfrom the major world deposits. Siri Scientific Press, Manchester, 192-207.

Schlüter T. 1975. Nachweis verschiedener Insecta-Ordines in einem mittelkretazischem Harz Nordwestfrankreichs.Entomol. Ger. 1, 151-161.

Schlüter T. 1978. Zur Systematik und Palökologie harzkonservierter Arthropoda einer Taphozönose aus demCenomanium von NW-Frankreich. Berliner Geowiss. Abh. (A) 9, 1-150.

Schlüter T. 1983. A fossiliferous resin from the Cenomanian of the Paris and Aquitanian Basin of Northwestern France.Cret. Res. 4, 265-269.

Schlüter T., Stürmer W. 1982. X-ray examination of fossil insects in Cretaceous amber of N.W. France. Ann. Soc.Entomol. Fr. 18, 527-529.

SONTAG E., SZWEDO J., SZADZIEWSKI R.

20 years of the Museum of Amber Inclusionsat the University of Gdańsk

ELŻBIETA SONTAG, JACEK SZWEDO, RYSZARD SZADZIEWSKI

Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions, Department of Invertebrate Zoologyand Parasitology, University of Gdańsk, 59, Wita Stwosza St., PL80-308 Gdańsk, Poland,

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Twenty years ago, on 29 May 1998, the Senate of the University of Gdańsk decided to establish theMuseum of Amber Inclusions at the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology. On a single day,a dream came true for two organisations: the Fossil Insects Section (currently the PalaeoentomologicalSection of the Polish Entomological Society) and the International Amber Association. And so, owing to thejoint efforts of researchers and the Gdańsk-based amber community, the pre-WWII tradition of collectingnatural amber artefacts returned to Gdańsk, while a scientific centre focused on gathering and studyinginclusions preserved in fossil resins began to develop here. The idea to create a collection of inclusions andraw amber at the University of Gdańsk was successfully implemented owing to the kind support of the UGRector Prof. Marcin Pliński, the Faculty's Dean Prof. Halina Piekarek-Jankowska, the Chairman of the FossilInsects Section Prof. Jan Koteja and the Gdańsk-based amber artist Wiesław Gierłowski.

The collaboration between Gdańsk scientists and the amber industry began in the early 1980s when thethen doctor, today Prof. Ryszard Szadziewski of the University of Gdańsk, together with the then doctor andcurrently Prof. Wiesław Krzemiński (Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy ofSciences, Kraków) extended their research on contemporary dipterans to include fossil species preserved inBaltic amber, based on the collection of the PAS Museum of the Earth, Warsaw. In 1985, the Fossil Insects

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Section was established at the Polish Entomological Society, including biologists, collectors, geologists andamber artists who began successful collaboration, with one common denominator—amber (Szadziewski etal. 2015). Despite the collaboration with Gdańsk amber artists and collectors, a researcher from Gdańsk, thecapital of amber, still had to travel to Warsaw, to the PAS Museum of the Earth, to study amber inclusions(oftentimes donated by a Gdańsk-based amber artist). But the 1990s changed a lot: 1994 saw Amberif—thefirst Amber Fair (it was visited by palaeoentomologists already in 1995), in 1996 the Amber Association wasestablished and in 1998 the Museum of Amber Inclusions was opened. Through this collaboration, thisparticular symbiosis of science and amber craft, not yet the largest but a certainly unique collection ofinclusions preserved in amber was established (Sontag and Szadziewski 2008, Sontag 2008 a, b Sontag 2013,Szadziewski and Sontag 2015, Sontag et al. 2015,).

Fig. New bulilding of Faculy Biology, and part of exhibition "Life in Amber Forest" open in 2013.

Over its first years, the collection grew rapidly owing to a donation of 50 kg of raw Baltic amber from theInternational Amber Association’s President Wojciech Kalandyk. The number of inclusions and natural piecesof amber increased rapidly; they were mostly prepared only on the surface to preserve the specimensvaluable to science, called syninclusions (Sontag 2010). The rate of volume growth decreased year on year,but this did not stop the collection from developing. The expansion of the laboratory and the detailedpreparation of the pieces made it possible for the collection to acquire the most valuable specimens eachyear, known as descriptive types, based on which new species have been described. At present, the Museumhas over 15,000 inclusions in its collection. As of 8 March 2018, the collection of the University of GdańskMuseum of Amber Inclusions has 54 types, out of which 12 were described in the past 3 years. Six more havenow been described; we are now waiting for the peer-reviewed papers to be published for these holotypesto be formally included in the collection’s inventory.

Not only the collection itself has grown over those 20 years; the availability of the material was the reasonwhy a significant research centre was established at the Department of Invertebrate Zoology andParasitology: Palaeoentomological investigations on non-biting midges started, conducted by Colleaguesfrom the Laboratory of Systematic Zoology – in 2010 by Dr (now Associate Professor) Wojciech Giłka, andsince 2013 by Ph.D. student (and now Dr) Marta Zakrzewska. In 2014, to the Laboratory and Museum ofAmber Inclusions, after many years of collaboration, both in scientific and trade-show terms, Dr hab. JacekSzwedo (currently Associate Professor) formally joined the Gdańsk research group. Prof. Jacek Szwedo wasthe first palaeoentomologist not to have worked on dipterans, with bugs being his favourite group. In 2015,the Museum became part of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and the Museum of AmberInclusions, with Dr Eng. Karol Szawaryn joining the team and taking care of fossil beetles. We might say thatthe insect orders with the largest numbers of inclusions are now “under control” at the Museum, though westill do not have anyone to handle hymenopterans.

The growth of both the collection and the laboratory is also made possible by funding from Poland’sMinistry of Science and Higher Education; in 2014 and 2016-18, the collection of inclusions received a SpecialResearch Facility (SPUB) grant, which made the collection available to researchers worldwide. Professionalpalaeontological facilities were developed to enable a thorough use of the collection. Pieces received 20years ago are now prepared, to be sometimes turned into 15-20 microscope tiles which make detailed studiespossible. This is owing to the precision equipment and the patience of Mr Błażej Bojarski, who wrote his MSc


dissertation at the Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology based on amber collected on thebeach. The collaboration with the IAA Laboratory makes it possible to professionally review the researchmaterial, while species description based on a specimen from the collection is always accompanied with theIR spectrum of the piece in which it is preserved.

The twentieth anniversary of the Museum is a very good opportunity to say THANK YOU to all those whohave contributed to making this unique collection happen, both to the donors who provided the researchmaterial and to the first describers of species, who significantly increased the value of the specimens. Mostdonors are recorded in documents, but there were also people who came to Amberif and Ambermart, or theAmber Days at the St Dominic’s Fair to donate a piece of amber with an inclusion to the Museum, withouteven leaving their name. The records of the Museum of Amber Inclusions feature these donors: Dany Azar,Danuta Burczik-Kruczkowska, Andrzej Cholewiński, Janusz Cieszewski, Jerzy Cieszewski, Jerzy Cybulski, Jerzyand Stanisław Cybulski, Piotr Czyż, Jonas Damzen, Ewa Depka, Tomasz Dębowski and Maciej Szulimowicz,Zbigniew Dobrowolski, Jolanta Dobryńczuk-Szeler, Janusz Dudnik, Ludwik Dumin, Jerzy Dutko, SieghardEllenberger, Roland Ellwanger, Enzo, Janusz Feręc, Janusz Fudala, Knut, Rudolff Geschäftsführer, GabrielaGierłowska, Wiesław Gierłowski, Mariusz Gliwiński, Barbara Gronuś-Dutko, Adam Grucelski, Joanna Guz,Marta Gwizdalska, Christel and Hans Hoffeins, Jadwiga and Bohdan Hołub, Stanisław Jacobson, AdamJanuszkiewicz, Jerzy Jeske, Mateusz Jóźwiak, Wojciech Kalandyk, Mirosław Kamiński, Friedrich Kerneger,Daniel Kisiel, Jacek Kocieniewski, Tadeusz Kołodziej, Władysław Korzycki, Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz,Jan Koteja, Leszek Krause, Mieczysław Krause, Edward Kruczkowski, Victor E. Krynicki, Waldemar Kulik, JanuszKupryjanowicz, Krzysztof Lalik, Jacek Leśniak, Doug Lundberg, Sadowski Maciej, Sylwester Maćkowiak,Waldemar Mikołajczyk, Mirosław Mrozik, Przemysław Nacewicz, Jacek Ożdżeński, Mark and Max Pankowski,Roman Pańkowski, Sebastian Pawlak, David Penney, Stefan Plota, Helena and Jan Podżorscy, PawełPodżorski, Eryk Popkiewicz, Elżbieta and Harald Popkiewicz, Janusz Pytel, Ewa Rachoń, Wiesław Radke,Andrzej Radke, Eugenio Ragazzi, Natalia Romanowa, Andrzej Rynkowski, Jacek Serafin, Edyta Smorawska andMarcin Tomaszewski, Elżbieta Sontag, Krzysztof Sontag, Frauke Stebner, Roman Sujkowski, RyszardSzadziewski, Mirosław Szulc, Jerzy Tofcik, Marek Trocha, Piotr Twardowski, Ryszard Uliński, JolantaWalkiewicz, Małgorzata Wąsowska, Piotr Wedekind, Wolfgang Weitschat, Dale Wicks, Elwira and LeszekWidanka, Monika Wilczak, Renata and Andrzej Wiszniewscy, Honorata Wojciechowska, Dariusz Wojtała,Dominika and Marek Wojtkiewicz, Renata Woźnica, Tomasz Zając, Sadowski Zdzisław, Eliasz Żelazowski.

Fig. A. Paleoentomological Gallery on Amberif'2002. Left to right: Janusz Fudala (deep inside), Jacek Serafin, JonasDamzen, Wolfgang Weitschat, Roland Dobosz. B. Paleoentomological Gallery on Amberif'2003. Left to right:Ryszard Szadziewski, Jacek Szwedo, Hans Hoffeins.

To mark the 25th Anniversary of Amberif, we need to emphasise that, to palaeontologists who study extinctorganisms, Amberif has practically become the place to meet where each year researchers and collectorsexchange experience and share their passion with the show’s participants. The small back office of thePalaeontology Gallery has seen heated discussions about inclusions and palaeontology, while at Amberif wehave had the opportunity to meet celebrated palaeoentomologists and collectors, including: WolfgangWeitschat, Brigitte and Günter Krumbiegel, Wilfried Wichard, Andrew Ross, Dany Azar, Yuri Popov, JanKoteja, Wiesław Krzemiński, Ulf Erichson, Ed Jarzembowski, Dan Bickel, Piotr Węgierek, Aleksander Herczek,


Jacek Serafin, Jonas Damzen, Janusz Fudala, Doug Lundberg, Christel and Hans Hoffeins, Alexandr Krylov. Thediscussions were not the only reason for meeting; Amberif also provided an opportunity to see extraordinary,unique specimens. Everyone usually focuses on their own area of interest and were it not for Amberif,probably few of us would ever see an inclusion of a scorpion, lizard or solpugid (a unique arachnid), or theonly real singing cicada found to date. (And—one more thing: would any of us have an opportunity to seesuch beautiful amber jewellery?).

On behalf of all the members of our Palaeoentomological Section of the Polish Entomological Society, wewish to thank the Amberif Project Director Ewa Rachoń for having seen and found a place for the PalaeoGroup at Amberif right from the start, so we can follow and develop our passions in the midst of the friendlyamber community.

ReferencesCollection of MAIG 2018. Collection of Museum of Amber Inclusions Types of fossil species.

http://www.kzbp.biol.ug.edu.pl/pages/pl/zbiory-naukowe/kolekcja-inkluzji-w-bursztynie-collection-of-amber-inclusions.php?lang=EN (accessed 05.06.2017)

Sontag E. 2008a. The collection of the Museum of Amber Inclusions at The University of Gdańsk: looking back at 10years of existence. Bursztynisko, Bilingual Newsletter of the International Amber Association 31, 27-34.

Sontag E. 2008b. Typy deskrypcyjne i syninkluzje w Muzeum Inkluzji w Bursztynie Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego. In.Kosmowska-Ceranowicz B., Gierłowski W. Eds. Bursztyn Poglądy Opinie, 2, 55-60.

Sontag E. 2013. The Collection of Animal Inclusions at the University of Gdańsk, Museum of Amber Inclusions. InKosmowska-Ceranowicz, B., Gierłowski, W. & Sontag, E. eds., 2013. The International Amber ResearcherSymposium. Amber. Deposits-Collection-The Market, Gdańsk: Gdańsk International Fair Co. 67-69

Sontag E., Szadziewski R., Szwedo J. 2015. Museum of Amber Inclusion, University of Gdańsk – exibition and science.Bursztynisko. Bilingual Newsletter of the International Amber Association, 37, 38-39.

Szadziewski R., Sontag E. 2008. Contribution of Gdańsk to research on animal inclusions in amber. Bursztynisko,Bilingual Newsletter of the International Amber Association 31, 7-16.

Szadziewski R., Sontag E. 2015. "Życie w lesie bursztynowym"- Ekspozycja edukacyjna Muzeum Inkluzji w Bursztynie naUniwersytecie Gdańskim./"Life in the Amber Forest" – An educational exhibition at the University of Gdańsk'sMuseum of Amber Inclusions. Amber news review 2014/2015, World Amber Council, Gdańsk, Poland, 2015, pp.96-99. Mayor’s Office for City Promotion, City Hall of Gdańsk. ISBN 978-83-938097-0-8

Szadziewski R., Sontag E., Szwedo J., Krzemiński W. 2015. 30 years with fossil insects (1985-2015). Bursztynisko.Bilingual Newsletter of the International Amber Association, 37, 22-27.

ROSS A.J.

The remarkable palaeodiversity in Burmese amber

ANDREW J. ROSS

National Museum of Scotland, Chambers St., Edinburgh, EH1 1JF, UK, [email protected]

The known palaeodiversity of organisms trapped in Burmese amber from Myanmar has increaseddramatically over the past few years. Theodore D.A. Cockerell (1916) was the first to record inclusions inBurmese amber and by 1920 had described species of insects, pseudoscorpions, a mite and a millipede. Thefirst plant was recorded by Dixon (1922). These specimens were in the R.J.C. Swinhoe collection which wasdeposited at the Natural History Museum in London (NHM) and was the only public collection of Burmeseamber for 80 years. I started work as the museum’s Curator of Fossil Insects in 1993 and realized there weresome interesting undescribed inclusions in the Burmese amber collection. Subsequent visits by Prof. AlexandrRasnitsyn and his colleagues from the Paleontological Institute, Moscow (PIN), confirmed this. Rasnitsyn(1996) mentioned the first records of spiders, a scorpion, a snail and reptile skin, and the latter three werefigured by Ross (1998). Shortly afterwards a Canadian mining company started exporting Burmese amberand it became available again. New collections were built up by David Grimaldi at the American Museum ofNatural History, New York (AMNH) and George Poinar at Oregon State University (OSU). Grimaldi et al. (2002)

http://www.kzbp.biol.ug.edu.pl/pages/pl/zbiory-naukowe/kolekcja-inkluzji-w-bursztynie-collection-of-amber-mailto:[email protected]


recorded and figured the first conifers, nematode worms, velvet worm, bird feather, centipedes and fungi(redescribed as bivalves and their borings by Smith and Ross 2018). Since then the following groups havebeen added – harvestmen (Giribet and Dunlop, 2005), wood-lice (Ross et al. 2010), ricinuleids (Wunderlich2012), tail-less whip scorpions (Engel and Grimaldi 2014), camel spiders (Dunlop et al. 2015), whip scorpionsand short-tailed whip scorpions (Wunderlich 2015), microwhip scorpions (Engel et al. 2016), crabs (Xia et al.2015), symphylans (Moritz and Wesener 2017), ostracods (Xing et al. 2018), horsehair worms (Poinar andBuckley, 2006), flatworms (Poinar et al. 2017), frogs (Xia et al. 2015), dinosaurs (Xing et al. 2016) and a varietyof protists (Poinar and Poinar 2004), fungi (Poinar and Buckley 2007) and plants, including flowers (Poinarand Chambers 2005).

With regards to the insects (Hexapoda), the species that Cockerell described originally belonged to 11orders (refs in Ross and York, 2000). He also mentioned the presence of cockroaches (Blattodea) (Cockerell1917). A supposed caddisfly (Trichoptera) was later identified as a belonging to Hemiptera however a truetrichopteran was described by Botosaneau (1981). Rasnitsyn (1996) listed 20 orders in the NHM collectionthough listed Homoptera and Heteroptera separately and missed the Embioptera which had been previouslyrecorded by Cockerell. Rasnitsyn and Ross (2000) added the Phasmatodea and Grimaldi et al. (2002) addedthe Odonata, Plecoptera and Zoraptera from the AMNH collection. The following extant orders weresubsequently added – Strepsiptera (Grimaldi et al. 2005a), Mecoptera (Grimaldi et al. 2005b), Megaloptera(Engel and Grimaldi 2008), Diplura (Xia et al. 2015) and Grylloblattodea (Xia et al. 2015). Amazingly three newextinct orders of insects have been described and named from Burmese amber in the past couple of years –Alienoptera Bai et al. 2016, Aethiocarenodea Poinar and Brown 2016; and Tarachoptera Mey et al. 2017; andthe extinct order Permopsocida was resurrected by Huang et al. (2016). The Isoptera are now considered toreside within Blattodea, and Collembola have been divided into three orders, so currently there are 34 ordersof hexapods known from Burmese amber, which is the highest for any amber (compared to 31 orders in Balticamber – see Weitschat and Wichard (2010) and accounting for 3 orders of Collembola, one order ofHemiptera, Isoptera within Blattodea, plus Phthiraptera).

The total number of species described from Burmese amber has risen exponentially over the past fewyears (Figure 1). The first three species to be described by Cockerell (1916) were Enicocephalus fossilis,Psyllipsocus(?) banksi and Termopsis swinhoei, all of which have subsequently been moved to other genera.Photos of them and of other Cockerell types were published for the first time in Ross and York (2000) andRoss et al. (2010) (note that in the latter Fig. 3D is of P. banksi and not ‘?Psylloneura perantiqua’ as given inthe figure caption). By 1922 Cockerell had named or recorded 44 species, however two of these (Trigonabees) were later discovered to be in copal (Grimaldi et al. 1995). Nearly 60 years elapsed until another specieswas described by Botosaneanu (1981), and Dlussky (1996a, b) described two new species of ants. The re-newed interest in this amber resulted in a thematic set of papers published in the Bulletin of The NaturalHistory Museum, Geology Series in 2000 in which some of Cockerell’s types were redescribed and 15 newspecies were named, bringing the total up to 60 species. The new collections at the AMNH and OSU, alongwith further study of the NHM collection led to a steady stream of papers describing new species. By the endof 2004 the total had doubled to 120 species and by the end of 2009 had more than doubled again to 259species. In the past few years the Chinese have become very interested in Burmese amber (Rippa and Yang2017). Many new mines have opened up and the market has been flooded meaning that Burmese amber isnow easily available and relatively cheap. The number of scientific papers and the number of new specieshas rocketed. By the end of 2015 the species total had nearly doubled again to 507 and by the end of 2017the total number of species described or recorded from Burmese amber reached an incredible 867(incorrectly counted as 870 in Ross 2018). 202 of these were named in 2017 which is the highest number ofspecies named from any amber in any one year in the entire history of amber studies (at the height ofDominican amber studies 80 species were named in 1994 (Arillo and Ortuño 2005)).

The number of families recorded has also increased significantly. The arthropod species that Cockerelldescribed (excluding those in copal) belonged to 30 families (Ross and York 2000). The palaeoentomologistsat PIN and other colleagues identified a total of 98 families of arthropods in the NHM collection (Rasnitsynand Ross, 2000), and Grimaldi et al. (2002) identified an additional 28 arthropod families plus 2 non-


arthropod families in the AMNH collection. Poinar and Poinar (2008) listed 149 families of hexapods aloneand Ross et al. (2010) listed 216 families of arthropods, including 185 families of hexapods. An additional 21families of other invertebrates, vertebrates, protists, plants and fungi had also been recorded by then. By theend of 2016 there were a total of 375 families recorded of which 342 were arthropods and 271 werehexapods (Ross 2017), and by the end of 2017 this had shot up to 429 families of which 389 were arthropodsand 300 were hexapods (Ross 2018). There was another Chinese book published last year (Zhang 2017),which I have not seen and may contain additional records.

The proliferation of the description of new species in Burmese amber is leading to a problem. There areso many people around the world describing new species that there is a high probability that different peopleare working on the same potential new species. It is also likely that there are already species described thatwill in the future become synonyms. A possible example of this is in the extinct family Archipsyllidae. Twonew species in two new genera were named in 2016 by different authors – Mydiognathus eviohlhoffaeYoshizawa and Lienhard 2016 and Psocorrhyncha burmitica Huang et al. 2016. These papers were publishedvery close to each other – the first on 11 February and second on 10 March and neither referred to eachother’s paper, thus they had been working in isolation. The two species certainly appear very similar so maybe conspecific, but require re-examination to confirm this. Another situation has arisen several times whereauthors have claimed the ‘first’ of something but which isn’t because another has already been published,e.g. Cai et al. 2017 (published on-line 16 June) and Qui et al. 2017 (accepted 14 July), both claimed to describethe first lucanid stag beetle. Different journals publishing at different speeds can also lead to problems. Aninteresting new amphiesmenopteran insect was described recently as Tarachocelis microlepidopterella in thenew family Tarachocelidae. The first description was provided in a paper submitted in June 2016 andaccepted November 2016, but was not published until January 2018 (Mey et al. 2018). After the first paperwas written similar but new species were discovered and a second paper was written but with differentjunior authorship and a new order Tarachoptera was erected (Mey et al. 2017). This second paper wassubmitted in October 2016 and accepted February 2017 but was due to be published before the first paper.To validate the species name a brief description was included in the second paper to avoid itbecoming a nomen nudum. Once the second paper had been published the first one had to be amended tocorrect the authorship of the family, genus and species names to avoid them being named twice withdifferent authorship.

The risk of potential synonyms led me to decide to make my checklist of Burmese amber species freelyavailable on-line (Ross 2017) rather than wait for opportunities to publish it. The list has subsequently beenextensively utilized by other authors (Guo et al. 2017) and on-line but as long as it is duly acknowledged I donot mind as it is better that the data is disseminated to avoid mistakes being made in the future. From doingthis I have been informed that the list has prevented two new species being described that were alreadypublished. So far there have been four versions, and version 4, up to the end of 2017, was made availableon-line on 10 January via my own webpage (Ross 2018) and Research Gate. I am also including references topapers in press, but not including the data from them in the main list. This list is not only of use to taxonomistsdescribing new species but also useful for reviewers of submitted papers. It would be nice to think that in thefuture researchers will collaborate more closely to avoid publishing potential synonyms though while thereis the culture of competition between rival research groups and the pressure to publish papers quickly, thenthis is unlikely.

There has been much discussion on the age of Burmese amber (see Ross et al. 2010). Ross (2015) arguedit was Albian because the presence of pholadid bivalve borings suggested that the amber was already hardbefore being deposited. However recent research has shown that some of the bivalves were boring into theresin while it was still soft, thus not long after it was exuded from the tree (Smith and Ross 2018). Thisdemonstrates that the amber is contemporaneous with the age of the bed, which was dated as 98.8 +/-0.6Ma using radioactive zircons (Shi et al. 2012) and is thus early Cenomanian in age.


Fig. 1. Graph showing the number of species described from Burmese amber from 1916 to 2017.

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Ser. B, No. 352, 68pp.Bai M., Beutel R.G., Klass K.-D., Zhang W., Yang X., Wipfler B. 2016. †Alienoptera — A new insect order in the roach-

mantodean twilight zone. Gond. Res. 39, 317-326.Botosaneanu L. 1981. On a false and a genuine caddis-fly from Burmese amber (Insecta: Trichoptera, Homoptera).

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(Palpigradi): a new genus and species in mid-Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. Sci. Nat. 103(19), 1-7.Engel M.S., Grimaldi D.A. 2008. Diverse Neuropterida in Cretaceous amber, with particular reference to the

paleofauna of Myanmar (Insecta). Nova Suppl. Ent. 20, 1-86.Engel M.S., Grimaldi D.A. 2014. Whipspiders (Arachnida: Amblypygi) in amber from the Early Eocene and mid-

Cretaceous, including maternal care. Novit. Paleoent., No. 9, 17pp.Giribet G., Dunlop J.A. 2005. First identifiable Mesozoic harvestman (Opiliones: Dyspnoi) from Cretaceous Burmese

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insect order Permopsocida elucidates major radiation and evolution of suction feeding in hemimetabolous insects(Hexapoda: Acercaria). Sci. Rep. 6(23004), 1-9.

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Mey W., Wichard W., Ross E., Ross A. 2018. On the systematic position of a highly derived amphiesmenopteran insectfrom Burmese amber (Insecta, Amphiesmenoptera). Earth & Env. Sci. Trans. R. Soc. Edin.,doi:10.1017/S1755691017000330.

Moritz L., Wesener T. 2017 (on-line). Symphylella patrickmuelleri sp. nov. (Myriapoda: Symphyla): The oldest knownSymphyla and first fossil record of Scolopendrellidae from Cretaceous Burmese amber. Cret. Res. 84, 258-263.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Brown A.E. 2016 (on-line). An exotic insect Aethiocarenus burmanicus gen. et sp. nov.(Aethiocarenodea ord. nov., Aethiocarenidae fam. nov.) from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber. Cret. Res. 72, 100-104.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Buckley R. 2006. Nematode (Nematoda: Mermithidae) and hairworm (Nematomorpha: Chordodidae)parasites in Early Cretaceous amber. J. Invert. Path. 93(1), 36-41.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Buckley R. 2007. Evidence of mycoparasitism and hypermycoparasitism in Early Cretaceous amber.Mycol. Res. 111(4), 503-506.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Chambers K.L. 2005. Palaeoanthella huangii gen. and sp. nov., an Early Cretaceous flower(Angiospermae) in Burmese amber. Sida 21(4), 2087-2092.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Philbrick K.A., Cohn M.J., Turner R.T., Iwaniec U.T., Wunderlich J. 2017. X-ray microcomputedtomography reveals putative trematode metacercaria in a 100 million year-old lizard (Squamata: Agamidae). Cret.Res. 80, 27-30.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Poinar R. 2004. Paleoleishmania proterus n. gen., n. sp. (Trypanosomatidae: Kinetoplastida) fromCretaceous Burmese amber. Protist 155(3), 305-310.

Poinar G.O.Jr., Poinar R. 2008. What bugged the dinosaurs? Princeton University Press, Princeton. 264pp.Qui T., Lu Y., Zhang W., Wang S., Yang Y., Bai M. 2017. Electraesalopsis beuteli gen. & sp. nov., the first lucanid beetle

from the Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea). Zoo. Syst. 42 (3), 390-394.Rasnitsyn A.P. 1996. Burmese amber at the Natural History Museum. Inclusion Wrostek 23, 19-21.Rasnitsyn A.P., Ross A.J. 2000. A preliminary list of arthropod families present in the Burmese amber collection at The

Natural History Museum, London. Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus., Geol. Ser., 56(1), 21-24.Rippa A., Yang Y. 2017. The Amber Road: cross-border trade and the regulation of the Burmite market in Tengchong,

Yunnan. TRaNS: Trans –Reg. & –Nat. Stud. Southeast Asia 5(2), 243-267.Ross A.J. 1998. Amber: the natural time capsule. Natural History Museum, London. 73pp.Ros A.J. 2015. Insects in Burmese amber. Entomologentagung 02.-05.03.2015 Frankfurt/M. Programm und Abstracts,

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Ross A.J. 2018. Burmese (Myanmar) amber taxa, on-line checklist v.2017.4. 87pp.(http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/stories/natural-world/burmese-amber/)

Ross A.J., Mellish C., York P., Crighton B. 2010. Chapter 12 Burmese amber, in: Penney D. (Ed) Biodiversity of fossils inamber from the major world deposits. Siri Scientific Press, 208-235.

Ross A.J., York P.V. 2000. A list of type and figured specimens of insects and other inclusions in Burmese amber. Bull.Nat. Hist. Mus., Geol. Ser., 56(1), 11-20.

Shi G., Grimaldi D.A., Harlow G.E., Wang J., Wang J., Yang M, Lei W., Li Q., Li X. 2012. Age constraint on Burmeseamber based on U-Pb dating of zircons. Cret. Res. 37, 155-163.

Smith R.D.A., Ross A.J. 2018. Amberground pholadid bivalve borings and inclusions in Burmese amber: Implications forproximity of resin-producing forests to brackish waters, and the age of the amber. Earth & Env. Sci. Trans. R. Soc.Edin., doi:10.1017/S1755691017000287.

Weitschat W., Wichard W. 2010. Chapter 6 Baltic amber, in: Penney D. (Ed) Biodiversity of fossils in amber from themajor world deposits. Siri Scientific Press, 80-115.

Wunderlich J. 2012. Description of the first fossil Ricinulei in amber from Burma (Myanmar), the first report of thisarachnid order from the Mesozoic and from Asia, with notes on the related extinct Order Trigonotarbida, in:Wunderlich J. (Ed.) Fifteen papers on extant and fossil spiders (Araneae). Beitr. Aran. 7, 233-244.

Wunderlich J. 2015. New and rare Arachnida in Cretaceous Burmese amber (Amblypygi, Ricinulei and Uropygi:Thelephonida), in: Wunderlich J. (Ed.) Mesozoic Spiders (Araneae). Beitr. Aran. 9, 409-436.

www.researchgate.net/publication/315208533_Burmese_Myanmar_amber_taxa_on-http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/stories/natural-world/burmese-amber/


Xia F., Yang G., Zhang Q., Shi G., Wang B. 2015. Amber: Lives through Time and Space. Science Press. 197pp. [inChinese]

Xing L., McKellar R.C., Xu X., Li G., Bai M., Scott Persons IV W., Miyashita T., Benton M.J., Zhang J., Wolfe A.P, Yi Q.,Tseng K., Ran H., Currie P.J. 2016. A feathered dinosaur tail with primitive plumage trapped in mid-Cretaceousamber. Curr. Biol. 26(24), 3352-3360.

Xing L., Sames B., McKellar R.C., Xi D., Bai M., Wan X. 2018. A gigantic marine ostracod (Crustacea: Myodocopa)trapped in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Sci. Rep. 8(1365), 109.

Yoshizawa K., Lienhard C. 2010. In search of the sister group of the true lice: A systematic review of booklice and theirrelatives, with an updated checklist of Liposcelididae (Insecta: Psocodea). Arth. Syst. & Phyl. 68(2), 181-195.

Zhang W.W., 2017. Frozen dimensions of the fossil insects and other invertebrates in amber. Chongqing UniversityPress. 400pp. (in Chinese).

GARROUSTE R., CARBUCCIA B., NEL A.

Insight in the Lowermost Eocene Oise amber:the collection of arthropod inclusions of the MNHN

ROMAIN GARROUSTE, BENJAMIN CARBUCCIA, ANDRÉ NEL

ISYEB, Department Origins and Evolution, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN)& Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France, [email protected]

The MNHN's amber collection includes a large group of inclusions from the Ypresian (Early Eocene, MP7mammalian level, lowermost Eocene, 55-53 Ma) sands of Oise. These have been studied since their discoveryin the early 1990’s (Nel et al. 1999). Currently more than 24,000 inclusions have been identified and continueto be found in the raw amber harvested during several campaigns in recent years, carried out with thesupport of the Lafarge-Granulat company, operating fossiliferous sand pits.

For the insects, this deposit is very valuable because it is among the rare oldest inclusion amber deposit ofthe post-crisis KT Conozoic period (together with one in Canada and one in India). Its great palaeodiversityallows to position the first representatives of many modern lineages (families). Coleoptera (with 45 families),Diptera, Hymenoptera, and Hemiptera are the dominant orders in the inclusion collection. Recently a reviewand study of the arachnid specimens allowed to bring to more than 350 samples of Aranae (2% of totalinclusions) with a large number of new families, bringing to more than 26 families the diversity of this deposit.This arthropod palaeobiocenosis confirms a biogeographical proximity with that of the Baltic amber deposits,nevertheless with a rather marked tropical tendency, confirmed by the Aranae for example and by severalinsect taxa.

A citizen science program is underway with the SAGA association (geologist amators associated to MNHN),which is helping to sort inclusions, and field campaigns are planned in the future with the help of volunteersfrom this association to increase the sampling.

ReferencesNel A., de Plöeg G., Dejax J., Duthiel D., Franceschi D., Gheerbrant E., Godinot M., Hervet S., Menier J.J., Augé M.,

Bignot G., Cavagnetto C., Duffaud S., Gaudant J., Hua S., Jossang A., Lapparent Broin F., Pozzi J.P., Paicheler J.C.,Beuchet F., and Rage J.C. 1999. Un gisement sparnacien exceptionnel à plantes, arthropodes et vertébrés (Éocènebasal, MP7): Le Quesnoy (Oise, France), Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences – Series IIA – Earth andPlanetary Science, 329(1), 65-72.



XING L., MCKELLAR R.C.

Recent discoveries of toothed birds and non-avian theropodremains in Cretaceous amber deposits from Myanmar

LIDA XING1,2, RYAN C. MCKELLAR3,4

1State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences,Beijing 100083, China, [email protected]

2School of the Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China3Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Regina, Saskatchewan S4P 4W7, Canada

4Biology Department, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan S4S 0A2, Canada

Burmese amber has been mined from the Kachin State of Myanmar for more than two millennia, and overthe last two decades, it has become one of the best sources for information on fossil insects in the mid-Cretaceous (99 million years ago). More recently, this deposit had become a new source for vertebratefossils. Although these specimens are fragmentary in nature, they offer a valuable supplement to ourunderstanding based on compression fossils found in sedimentary rocks. Amber preserves microscopicstructures and labile tissues in a new level of detail, retaining chemical signals and three-dimensionalarrangements that are seldom available from other types of fossils. This material allows us to explore newaspects of “Mid” Cretaceous ecosystems, but it also presents its own limitations and biases (particularlyrelated to the size of the inclusions preserved). As part of this talk, we will explore the recent discoveries oftoothed birds (the wings of Enantiornithes, and hatchling) and dinosaur material (Coelurosauria tail) thathave been reported from Burmese amber, and prospects for this line of research. New technologies, such assynchrotron-based CT scanning and chemical mapping, are reshaping the way that amber inclusions arestudied. Meanwhile, standard biological techniques like stable isotope analyses are taking hold in amberresearch. These developments have combined to turn amber into a valuable resource for vertebratepalaeontological studies, and they provide a new source of palaeoecological data for bonebed research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTThis research was supported by National Geographic Society, USA (No. EC0768-15); the National Natural

Science Foundation of China (No. 41772008), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(No. 2652017215), and National Sciences Engineering Research Council, Canada (2015-00681).

ReferencesMcKellar R.C., Chatterton B.D.E., Wolfe A.P. Currie P.J. 2011. A diverse assemblage of Late Cretaceous dinosaur and

bird feathers from Canadian amber. Science 333, 1619-1622.Xing L.D., McKellar R.C., Wang M., Bai M., O’Connor J.K., Benton M.J., Zhang J.P., Wang Y., Tseng K.W., Lockley M.G., Li

G., Zhang W.W., Xu X. 2016. Mummified precocial bird wings in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Nat. Commun. 7,12089, 1-7.

Xing L.D., McKellar R.C., Xu X., Li G., Bai M., Persons W.S.IV., Miyashita T., Benton M.J., Zhang J.P., Wolfe A.P., Yi Q.R.,Tseng K.W., Ran H., Currie P.J. 2016. A feathered dinosaur tail with primitive plumage trapped in mid-Cretaceousamber. Curr. Biol. 26, 3352-3360.

Xing L.D., O'Connor J.K., McKellar R.C., Chiappe L.M., Tseng K.W., Li G., Ba, M. 2017. A mid-Cretaceous enantiornithine(Aves) hatchling preserved in Burmese amber with unusual plumage. Gondwana Res. 49, 264-277.



HOFFEINS C., HOFFEINS H.W., KUTZSCHER C., BLANK S.M.

Jumping to more knowledge – a new flea in Baltic amber

CHRISTEL HOFFEINS1, HANS WERNER HOFFEINS1, CHRISTIAN KUTZSCHER2, STEPHAN M. BLANK2

1, 2 Liseistieg 10, D-22149 Hamburg, Germany, [email protected], 4 Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Eberswalder Strasse 90, D-15374 Müncheberg, Germany,

[email protected], [email protected]

The fossil record of Siphonaptera in Baltic amber is very rare. Four species were described and placed inthe extant genus Palaeopsylla (Ctenophthalmidae). Up-to-date six specimens were reported from amber.These include the type specimens of Palaeopsylla klebsiana Dampf, 1911, P. (Peusianapsylla) dissimilis Peus,1968, P. (Peusianapsylla) baltica Beaucournu and Wunderlich, 2001 and P. groehni Beaucournu, 2003. Urban(2004) reported a flea from the Bitterfeldian (Saxonian) amber which was identified as a male of P. dissimilisby Perrichot et al. (2012), deposited in the collection of the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz,Germany. Here, we report a new Palaeopsylla specimen from Baltic amber, increasing the number of knownindividuals to six. This is housed in the senior authors' collection (CCHH), which is destinated for laterrepository at the Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut (SDEI), Müncheberg.

This amber piece including a flea comes from a well-known and reliable amber company in Jantarnyj(Kaliningrad region), Russia, certificated by International Amber Association report no. 6711_25032017. Theflea is embedded in a multi-layered, concave-shaped „Schlaube“ of 52 mm × 29 mm × 12 mm dimension.Syninclusions comprise several Diptera as a keroplatid female, a psychodid male, four sciarids, a chironomidfemale, a cecidomyiid (all Diptera), two cicad nymphs (Cicadina), two female scale insects (Coccina), fourcollembolans, a coleopteran larva, two oribatid mites (Acari), an opilionid juvenil, an isolated chelicere of apseudoscorpion and two fragments of juvenil spiders (all Arachnida). Several fragments of plant trichomes(stellate hairs) are included as well.

The flea with a body length of 1.16mm is positioned immediately below the surface of a resin flow exposingthe complete right body side which allows investigation of the main features. Preservation is excellentalthough micro fissures obscure its silhouette particularly in case of the frontal and dorsal part of the body.Under transmitted light, some appendages and the clasper of the male terminalia are visible. The genitalcomplex of the males of P. dissimilis and P. groehni is retracted inside the body cavity. In case of the presentamber specimen, the male genital of a fossil flea, bearing long setae, is visible for the first time.

Fig. 1. Palaeopsylla sp. (Ctenophthalmidae), CCHH 1187-1. Habitus, right side. 1.16mm.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


Distribution of the extant Palaeopsylla species is Palearctic with a few exceptions in the Oriental. Allspecies are parasites of insectivores (moles and shrews, Talpidae and Soricidae). A key for the identificationof fossil species does not exist and assignment to species level of this new record still is under progress.Comparison with main characters of amber Palaeopsylla reveals that it is more similar to P. dissimilis ratherthan to P. baltica and P. groehni. Amber with P. baltica was treated in autoclave (Hoffeins 2012), chaetotaxyof abdomen is not well preserved and it is a female. The striking feature of P. groehni, a group of spatulatesetae on posterior margin of sternite IX, cannot be detected in previously documented images and drawing(JANZEN 2002 figs. 71, 341; www.ambertop.de). Thus, the question arises if the abdominal setae weremisinterpreted as "spatulate" caused by a cover of micro air film as it occasionally occurs in amber inclusionsand if the author had got into the "amber trap" as exposed by Szwedo and Sontag (2009). Furthermore, thegenal ctenidia in P. dissimilis and P. groehni seem to be identical. Study of the previously described specimensand identification of the new inclusion is matter of a forthcoming project.

ReferencesDampf A. 1911. Palaeopsylla klebsiana n. sp., ein fossiler Floh aus dem baltischen Bernstein. Schriften Phys.-Ökon.

Ges. Königsberg. 51, 248-259.Beaucournu J.C., Wunderlich J. 2001. A third species of Palaeopsylla Wagner, 1903, from Baltic amber (Siphonaptera:

Ctenophthalmidae). Entomol. Z. 111, 296-298.Beaucournu J.C. 2003. Palaeopsylla groehni n. sp., quatrième espèce de puce connue de l'ambre de la Baltique

(Siphonaptera, Ctenophthalmidae). Bull. soc. ent. Fr. 108, 217-220.Hoffeins C. 2012. On Baltic amber inclusions treated in an autoclave. Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne. 81, 165-181.Janzen J.W. 2002. Arthropods in Baltic amber. Ampyx Verlag Halle.Peus F. 1968. Über die beiden Bernstein-Flöhe (Insecta, Siphonaptera). Paläontol. Z. 42, 62-72.Perrichot V., Beaucournu J.-C., Velten, J. 2012. First extinct genus of a flea (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae) in Miocene amber

from the Dominican Republic. Zootaxa 3438: 54-61.Szwedo J., Sontag, E. 2009. The traps of the 'amber trap'. How inclusions could trap scientists with enigmas. Denisia,

zugleich Kataloge der oberösterreichischen Landesmuseen 26: Neue Serie 86.155-169Urban J. 2004. Spektakulärer Erstfund eines Flohs (Siphonaptera) im Bitterfelder Bernstein. Veröff. Mus. Naturkd.

Chemnitz 27, 125-126.http://www.ambertop.de/be_raritaeten.html (accessed 15. 01. 2018)

PIELOWSKA A., SONTAG E., SZADZIEWSKI R.

Haematophagous arthropods in Baltic amber

AGATA PIELOWSKA, ELŻBIETA SONTAG, RYSZARD SZADZIEWSKI

Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions, Department of Invertebrate Zoologyand Parasitology, University of Gdańsk, 59, Wita Stwosza St., PL80-308 Gdańsk, Poland,

[email protected]

Among terrestrial arthropods feeding on blood of vertebrates called haematophagy concerns about 1% ofall extant species. Blood feeding arthropods on mammals and birds, rarely on reptiles and amphibians arereported as inclusions in fossil resins dated back to Lower Cretaceous. Eocene Baltic amber from deposits ofGulf of Gdańsk, Rovno and Bitterfeld, dated from 35 to 50 million years ago, contains 48 fossil species ofblood feeding arthropods placed in extant and extinct genera. In Baltic amber haematophagous fossilarthropods are reported among Acari (1 species), Phthiraptera (+), Siphonaptera (4), and Diptera (43species.). Blood sucking flies are represented by six families: Ceratopogonidae (11), Corethrellidae (5),Culicidae (5), Psychodidae (5), Simuliidae (9), and Tabanidae (8 species). In the Baltic amber forest thenumber of species of blood sucking dipterans was similar to that in the extant fauna of Poland (3.4%, and3.2% respectively). A catalogue of named haematophagous arthropods reported from Baltic amber is alsoprovided.

www.ambertop.dehttp://www.ambertop.de/be_raritaeten.htmlmailto:[email protected]


SIDORCHUK E.

A family story told by amber inclusions(Acari: Collohmanniidae)

EKATERINA SIDORCHUK

Arthropoda Laboratory, Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences,Profsoyuznaya ulitsa 123, Moscow, Russia, [email protected]

Collohmanniidae is a small family within a large, ubiquitous arachnid group – moss, or armored, mites(Oribatida). Collohmanniidae are unusual oribatids (Norton and Sidorchuk 2014): they are large (0.8-2.2 mm)compared to the ordinary oribatid size (about 0.5 mm), their geographic distribution is highly disjunct (seebelow), and they have pronounced sexual dimorphism and distinct sexual behavior, including transfer ofmale-produced nuptial food to female during a courtship dance (Schuster 1962, Alberti and Schuster 2005).The latter is unique among moss mites, the majority of which transfer sperm non-associatively, with free-standing spermatophores, while about 10% of Recent species are parthenogenetic (Norton et al. 1993). Thegeneral objectives of my ongoing study are to describe newly discovered but yet-unnamed collohmanniids,fossil and Recent, and to understand the evolution and biogeography of the family.

Fig. 1. Distribution of Recent and Baltic amber fossil Collohmanniidae, both named and undescribed. Body lengths ofmites, from left to right: 1.14 mm, 1.14 mm, 1.77 mm, 1.17 mm. The underlying map is a portion fromEurasian_mass.jpg by Koba-chan, 2009 (CC-BY-SA-3.0)

There are five described Collohmannidae species. Two are Eocene Baltic amber fossils: Embolacaruspergratus Sellnick, 1918 and Collohmannia schusteri Norton, 2006. The holotype and only specimen of E.pergratus was lost during World War II along with other materials from the Königsberg University collection(see Norton 2006). Three described species are Recent: C. gigantea Sellnick, 1922 known from Austria,Romania and (unconfirmed record) Ukraine, C. asiatica Krivolutsky et Christov, 1970 (in Christov 1970) fromTadzhikistan (see Sidorchuk and Norton 2016) and C. johnstoni Norton and Sidorchuk, 2014 from WestVirginia, USA. Collohmanniids inhabit leaf litter in warm-temperate forests and feed on decaying leaves ofdeciduous trees (Alberti and Schuster 2005; Norton and Sidorchuk 2014). Apart from these, there are at leastseven undescribed Collohmannia species. Three are Recent, each known from an isolated mountain forestarea in the Palaearctic region: one from the Caucasus, the second from Asia Minor, and the third from theBalkan Peninsula (Figure 1). Four other undescribed Collohmannia species have been found in Baltic amber,



each as a single specimen and all originally in private collections. Like the holotype of C. schusteri, all fourwere found in attempts to discover a specimen of Embolacarus pergratus that could reveal unknown traitsand be designated neotype: one by Roy A. Norton, and the other three by myself. Thus, representatives ofat least a dozen species of Collohmanniidae, Recent and fossil, are available for study.

When the geographic distribution of extant Collohmanniidae is considered, a palaeo – biogeographichypothesis of fragmentation—probably climate change-driven—seems self-evident. I.e., a previously large,probably sylvatic, area occupied by a parental species was subdivided, with subsequent independentevolution of the isolated populations resulting in the emergence of several separate species. Morphologicalanalysis of the Recent species, which reveals a mosaic distribution of character states (Sidorchuk and Norton2016), does not contradict this hypothesis. But a completely different scenario emerges when the fossils areconsidered (see Figure 1).

Recovery of six different species of Collohmannia in Baltic amber clearly shows that the source forest wasan arena of sympatric speciation for this mite group. The driving force of this speciation or at least its majorenabling feature, might have been selection by females, achieved during the unique courtship ritual ofCollohmannia. This hypothesis is supported by the existence of a male-only specialization that is uniqueamong oribatid mites. While other character states that vary among species are distributed in a mosaicmanner, Collohmannia males have a modified genu and tibia of leg IV—particularly a specialized seta v” ofthe genu—that are uniquely shaped in each fossil or Recent species. In Recent species these organs comeinto direct contact with the female during nuptial food transfer. The shape of this area seems to have a mate-recognition function, which would have been of utmost importance in sympatric speciation.

Fig. 2. Drawing of lost holotype and only specimen of Embolacarus pergratus Sellnick, 1918, copied from originaldescription. Body length is 0.88 mm.

The story of Collohmanniidae shows how easy it is to misinterpret the biogeography and the evolutionaryhistory of a group when judging from its Recent distribution alone. But it also shows howfruitful a collaboration between researchers and private amber collectors can be. Fossils of Collohmanniidaeare extremely rare, about one per two thousand amber mites, and no species has been collected more thanonce. Since its loss during World War II, the type specimen of the first collohmanniid species described,Embolacarus pergratus (Figure 2), has not been replaced with a conspecific specimen. We keep looking forthis precious replacement, since a thorough study of this first-named species in Collohmanniidae is crucial toour understanding of this unusual mite family.

ReferencesAlberti G., Schuster R. 2005. Behavioural and ultrastructural peculiarities of reproduction in Collohmannia gigantea

(Oribatida: Mixonomata), in: Weigmann G., Alberti G., Wohltmann A., Ragusa A. (Eds.) Acarine Biodiversity in theNatural and Human Sphere. Proceedings of the V Symposium of the European Association of Acarologists (Berlin2004). Phytophaga, Palermo, 129-140.

Christov V.V. 1970. New species of the oribatid mites in the soils of Tadzikistan, in: Bulanova-Zakhvatkina E. M.,Gilyarov M. S., Krivolutsky D. A., Petrova-Nikitina A. D., Eitminavičiũtė I. S., Aukshtikalnene A. M. (Eds.) Oribatei andtheir role in the process of the soil formation. Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius, 155-160.


Koba-chan 2009. 'File:Eurasian mass.jpg', Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Eurasian_mass.jpg&oldid=139404878 (accessed23.01.2018)

Norton R.A. 2006. First record of Collohmannia (C. schusteri n. sp.) and Hermannia (H. sellnicki n. sp.) from Balticamber, with notes on Sellnick’s genera of fossil oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida). Acarologia 46(1-2), 111-125.

Norton R.A., Kethley J., Johnston D.E., OConnor B.M. 1993. Phylogenetic perspectives on genetic systems andreproductive modes of mites, in: Wrensch D. L., Ebbert M. A. (Eds.) Evolution and Diversity of Sex Ratio in Insectsand Mites. Chapman & Hall, New York and London, 8-99.

Norton R.A., Sidorchuk E.A. 2014. Collohmannia johnstoni n. sp. (Acari, Oribatida) from West Virginia (U.S.A.),including description of ontogeny, setal variation, notes on biology and systematics of Collohmanniidae. Acarologia54(3), 271-334.

Schuster R. 1962. Nachweis eines Paarungszeremoniells bei den Hornmilben (Oribatei, Acari). Naturwissenschaften49(21), 502.

Sellnick M. 1918. Die Oribatiden der Bernsteinsammlung der Universität Königsberg i. Pr., in: Schr. Phys.-Ökon.Gesellschaft Königsberg Pr. B.G. Teubner, Leipzig und Berlin, 21-42.

Sellnick M. 1922. Milben der Sammlung des Deutschen Entomologischen Instituts. I. Oribatidae. Ent. Mitt. 11(1), 18-20.

Sidorchuk E.A., Norton R.A. 2016. The identity and type specimens of Collohmannia asiatica (Acari, Oribatida,Collohmanniidae). Acarina 24(1), 5-16.

WANG B., SZWEDO J.

More than expected – disparity of the Hemiptera (Insecta)in the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber

BO WANG1, JACEK SZWEDO2

1Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,39, East Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, China, [email protected]

2Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions, Department of Invertebrate Zoology andParasitology, University of Gdańsk, 59, Wita Stwosza St., PL80-308 Gdańsk, Poalnd, [email protected]

The Hemiptera – this insect order which such different insect groups aphids, scale insects, whiteflies,psyllids, planthoppers, singing cicadas, froghoppers, leafhoppers, treehoppers, true bugs, moss bugs andnumerous extinct lineages not possessing trivial names. The Hemiptera – the one of Big Five insect orders,the most speciose and the most diversified. The Hemiptera – the insect order covering over 300 extant andextinct families, which is the highest number among all insects (Szwedo 2018). There are 211 recognisedfamilies for the richest in species beetles, Coleoptera, with over 400,000 species described (Bouchard et al.2011), and 160 extant and extinct families for about 125,000 species of flies already described (Thompsonand Pape 2013, Michaelsen and Pape 2017). The Hemiptera appeared in the Carboniferous, and since thenwhich is a major component of terrestrial and aquatic biota through geological periods. The Hemiptera –insects from 2 mm to 300 mm of wingspan, with wings sclerotised, membranous, reduced or transformed,the insects presenting the highest morphological disparity than any other insect order, making the major andminor groups distinguishable by particular sets of morphological characters and adaptations.

Fossil record, with all its limits, is the only source of information about taxonomic palaeodiversity andmorphological palaeodisparity of extinct organisms. Inclusions in amber are invaluable source of informationon organisms, which had to live millions years ago, their morphology, taxic diversity, palaeodistributions andpalaeoecology. Regarding the Hemiptera, the oldest finding of these insects in amber, come from the earlyCretaceous, from amber of Lebanon.

Burmese amber, mineralogically named as burmite by Gdańsk pharmacist Otto Helm (Helm 1892, 1893),till end of last century was regarded as rare and weakly known fossil resin. The interest in burmite and itsinclusions exploded during the past two decades and resulted in hundreds of descriptions of taxa from thisamber. The main amberiferous and fossiliferous deposit is an area near Noije Bum Hill, in Hukawng Valley,

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


Kachin State (Kania et al. 2015; Thu and Zaw 2017). These deposits were investigated and dated in detail byCruickshank and Ko (2003) and Shi et al. (2012), which currently date the deposit of 98.8 ± 0.63 Ma. However,slightly older, late Aptian age of amber was recently postulated (Zheng et al. 2018), due to fact, that theamber shows evidence of redeposition (Grimaldi and Ross 2017; Smith and Ross 2018).

Burmite is bringing rich record of almost all hemipteran groups and lineages, presenting diversity anddisparity far more expressed and sometimes odd, than in their recent descendants. The first descriptionscome from Cockerell (1916, 1917a, b, 1919), covering planthoppers, whiteflies and true bugs. Then burmiteinclusions of the Hemiptera were almost forgotten (Štys 1969, Rasnitsyn and Ross 2000, Ross and Yorke2000).

Sternorrhyncha is one of this group which is treated in more details elsewhere (Szwedo et al. this volume).Heteroptera are quite rich, known since Cockerell’s first descriptions, but insufficiently elaborated. Oneextinct family, Palaeoleptidae was already described

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM - AMBEREXPOamberif.amberexpo.pl/mtgsa2010/library/File/AMBER...first edition, AMBERIF has been accompanied by scientific seminars, which were initiated by Prof.

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