Burmese amber
Burmese amber, or Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. It is important for its fossils from the earliest part of the Upper Cretaceous, in the Cenomanian age, 99 million years ago. The amber has been commercially exploited since the first century AD. Research on the deposit may fund internal conflict in Myanmar.
The amber has flora and fauna especially arthropods such as insects and arachnids. There are also also birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and fragments of dinosaur remains.
The fossils arachnids in the amber include:
- 44 families of spiders.
- 20 families of mites.
- 5 families of Opiliones (mites, harvestmen, daddy longlegs)
- 12 families of pseudoscorpions
- 7 families of scorpions
- 5 families of ticks
- 1 genus of short-tailed whipscorpion (Schizomida)
- 1 genus of Palpigradi
- 1 genus of Amblypygi
- 1 genus of camel spider
- 2 genera of whip scprpions
- 3 genera of hooded tickspiders
15 families of myriapods are in the amber
8 families of Entognatha are known
29 orders of insects are known, including:
- 50+ families of Hymenoptera
- 47 families of flies (Diptera)
- 89 families of beetles (Coleoptera)
- 21 families of Neuroptera (such as lacewings, antlions, etc)
- 65 families of Hemiptera (true bugs)
- 20 families of Dictyoptera
And 16 more smaller families.
Other groups of invertebrates include:
There are some vertebrates:
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- A well preserved theropod dinosaur tail, with preserved feathers.[1]
- Fossils of enantiornithine birds including juveniles[2][3] and partial wings and preserved feet,[4][5][6][7] including a diagnostic taxon, Elektorornis.[8]
- A complete skull of the bizarre avialan or lizard Oculudentavis is known.[9]
- Electrorana is a well preserved frog known from the amber.[10]
- Other notable specimens include an embryonic snake.[11]
- Several species of lizard were described from the deposit including a gecko with preserved toe pads (Cretaceogekko).[12][13]
- One of the specimens was initially described to be a chamelonid, actually turned out to be an albanerpetonid amphibian.[14]
Burmese Amber Media
Wing of the dragonfly Burmalindenia in a cabochon of Burmese amber, showing typical red colouration of the amber. Scale bar = 5mm
Geological context of Burmese amber in northern Myanmar
Fossil of the tailed stem-group spider Chimerarachne in Burmese amber
Fossil of the frog Electrorana in Burmese amber
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References
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A feathered dinosaur tail with primitive plumage trapped in mid-Cretaceous amber (in en). Current Biology 26 (24) (2016). p. 3352–3360. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.008.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A mid-Cretaceous enantiornithine (Aves) hatchling preserved in Burmese amber with unusual plumage (in en). Gondwana Research 49 (2017). p. 264–277. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2017.06.001.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A flattened enantiornithine in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber: morphology and preservation (in en). Science Bulletin 63 (4) (2018). p. 235–243. doi:10.1016/j.scib.2018.01.019.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A fully feathered enantiornithine foot and wing fragment preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Scientific Reports 9 (1) (2019). p. 927. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37427-4.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A mid-Cretaceous enantiornithine foot and tail feather preserved in Burmese amber. Scientific Reports 9 (1) (2019). p. 15513. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-51929-9.
- ↑ Xing, Lida. An unusually large bird wing in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (in en). Cretaceous Research 110 (2020). p. 104412. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104412.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. Mummified precocial bird wings in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Nature Communications 7 (1) (2016). p. 12089. doi:10.1038/ncomms12089.
- ↑ Xing, Lida. A new Enantiornithine bird with unusual pedal proportions found in amber. Current Biology 29 (14) (2019). p. 2396–2401. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.05.077.
- ↑ Xing, Lida. Hummingbird-sized dinosaur from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar (in en). Nature 579 (7798) (2020). p. 245–249. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2068-4.
- ↑ Xing, Lida. The earliest direct evidence of frogs in wet tropical forests from Cretaceous Burmese amber (in en). Scientific Reports 8 (1) (2018). p. 8770. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-26848-w.
- ↑ Xing, Lida + others. A mid-Cretaceous embryonic-to-neonate snake in amber from Myanmar (in en). Science Advances 4 (7) (2018). p. eaat5042. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat5042.
- ↑ Arnold, E. Nicholas. A 100 million year old gecko with sophisticated adhesive toe pads, preserved in amber from Myanmar. Zootaxa 1847 (1) (2008). p. 62. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.1847.1.5.
- ↑ Daza, Juan D.. Mid-Cretaceous amber fossils illuminate the past diversity of tropical lizards (in en). Science Advances 2 (3) (2016). p. e1501080. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1501080.
- ↑ Matsumoto, Ryoko. The first record of albanerpetontid amphibians (Amphibia: Albanerpetontidae) from East Asia (in en). PLOS ONE 13 (1) (2018). p. e0189767. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189767.