CRETACEOUS BURMESE AMBER BIOTA

Burmese amber (amber from northern Myanmar) contains the most diverse biota of all Cretaceous amber. During the last 100 years, Burmese amber has received worldwide scientific interest; more than 300 families of arthropods plus diverse plants and vertebrates have been reported.

Burmese amber has been known for nearly 2000 years, and it has been traded with China since Han Dynasty times (202 B.C. to 220 A.D). The first reported animal inclusions in Burmese amber were presented between 1917 and 1922 by Dr. Cockerell. The renaissance in Burmese amber research started at the very end of 20th century and the investigations on inclusions of Burmese amber are now in full bloom. Recently, in internationally collaborations, the amber and its inclusions have been thoroughly investigated, with prolific papers and reports published on the identification and description of numerous fossil inclusions.

We have re-investigated this biota based on new, abundant fossils and got some new and surprising discoveries. We found a number of arthropod groups that are rare or extremely rare in amber, e.g. crabs (Brachyura), camel spiders (Solifugae), whip-scorpions (Thelyphonida), and onychophorans (Onychophora). Insects are the most common group in Burmese amber and show a remarkable mixture of basal and derived forms. They document a particularly active time in the evolution of life on land, the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution. Flowering plants were flourishing and diversifying, the insects that fed on the flowers were also flourishing and diversifying, and the predators that fed on the insects (spiders, lizards, mammals, and birds) were flourishing and diversifying. The stories of plant, insect and other invertebrates, and predator interactions documented in Burmese amber offer an unprecedented view into the co-evolution of insects and plants, the evolution of pollination, adaptations to various types of food and habitats, and the formation of recent ecosystems and biotas.

Although the list of exciting discoveries is long, only about 20% of the inclusions have been formally described from Burmese amber. Therefore the Burmese amber biota requires much more extensive and detailed taxonomic investigation.