Trapped in Time – Amber Discoveries

In 2021, in the dusty attic of Jena’s Phyletisches Museum, almost hidden at the back of a shelf, Bernhard Bock, collection manager at the University of Jena, found three boxes of unpolished amber. With a small group of colleagues, he sets off in search of clues. A cash receipt and typewriting on some labels provides clarity: The collection was acquired by Dr. Eduard Uhlmann, conservator, and later Director of the Phyletisches Museum until his retirement in 1954. 15 years later he bequeathed the small collection to the then custodian Dr. Dietrich von Knorre, who had stored but never had time to study it. Most likely since that time nobody had touched this box for decades. However, the origin of the amber was still a mystery.

Fossils embedded in amber are called inclusions and are considered a unique natural phenomenon. Like a crystal coffin, the still liquid resin encloses living organisms, hardens, and traps them for millions of years, allowing us three-dimensional observation of their finest structures. Inclusions differ from other fossils since the animals usually get stuck in the resin while alive. This offers us a snapshot of life in motion, namely the last seconds, including their death struggle. Therefore, amber inclusions are the perfect collection objects; by themselves being caught and preserved at a certain place and a certain time.
To be able to see what’s hidden inside, Bock and his colleagues had to go through a tedious process of polishing every single piece. They first sanded the surface with progressively finer grits of sandpaper and then applied a special paste and/or activated charcoal toothpaste to the surface afterwards. In some of the pieces more than 100 fascinating inclusions came to light: Ants, beetles, bees, booklice, and many more. To isolate some rare specimen, they even cut some pieces into thinner slides.

Amber exceptionally preserves insects and microorganisms. These fossils not only provide details about an organism’s morphology, ecology, ethology, and evolutionary history, even Earth history, but are also vital to the study of climate and faunistic change that goes along with it. Some of the species buried in amber might even no longer exist today or have adapted to today’s environment. Looking back in time helps to put today’s species and their evolution into perspective.
Both the inclusions and the amber itself are of great interest for research disciplines such as zoology, botany, paleontology, and geochemistry. Amber collections are therefore a valuable part of our scientific, cultural, and global heritage.

Daniel Troeger was able to discover a new beetle species based on morphological characteristics visible under the microscope, and Michael Weingardt found a new booklice species that will be named after the former custodian of the Phyletic Museum von Knorre, to whom the amber collection can be traced back to.
Based on morphological characteristics, such as tiny spines, hairs, and scale patterns only visible under the microscope, the team of the Phyletisches Museum will describe further new species in the Baltic amber and copal.