44 Million Year Old Spider Has Uninvited Guest

Have you ever seen the original Jurassic Park movie? The concept is based on the whimsical idea that scientists can clone Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that have been trapped in fossilized amber by extracting their preserved DNA.

While this idea may have been far-fetched at the time it was written, scientists today are using amber to learn some pretty interesting things. In the Discover Magazine article of March 25^th, 2011, Michael Ohl, an employee of Berlin’s Museum of Natural History, has been working with the museum’s collection of prehistoric spiders trapped in amber. His work is centered around insects called mantidflies and their method of spider-boarding. .

Ohl has found a beautiful example of this behaviour amidst the museum’s collections. It’s a 44 million year old piece of amber with a spider inside it. And there, latched onto its underside just as its modern relatives do, is a mantidfly larva. It can be seen in the detailed photos above:  it’s facing to the right and you can clearly see the three legs on its right side.

Spider-boarding is practiced by a group of insects called mantidflies. The larvae of most mantidfly species are fussy diners – they only eat the eggs of spiders. That seems like a dangerous enough strategy, for spiders are formidable hunters. But it gets crazier – some mantidflies find spider egg sacs by hitching a ride on the backs of adults.

 Amber is a window into our past. Science now has yet another link from the past to help people better understand the natural world. We commend the work of Mr. Ohl, and we hope that scientists can continue to learn about the past from amber.

Maybe one day we will be able to see the Dinosaurs in the Zoo. In the meantime we can dream about this idea while peering into one of our collectible amber stones.

How to Clean Your Amber Jewelry

We receive a lot of questions from customers, and Amber collectors, on how to properly clean, and care for, their favorite pieces of amber. So if you’re new to the world of amber, or just looking to mantain the beauty of some of your favorite pieces, we’re here to help with this video!

If you’ve like to learn more about our Amber Jewelry, just click here!

Your going to want to start with:

• -Two containers of water.
  -A toothbrush
  -Some liquid Soap
  -Some olive oil.
  -And a few towels

-The first step is to mix a small amount of liquid soap in the water.

-Next take the toothbrush, dip it in the soap and water mixture, and scrub the amber gently.

• -You’re going to want to focus on the area wear the silver meets the amber, or in the case of amber without silver, in between the amber stones, or beads.

-Next, rinse off any residue from the soap, by washing off the amber in your other container of water.

-Then take a very small amount of olive oil, apply it to your hand, (or finger depending on the size of the amber) and work it into the stone. This will keep your stone with a beautiful luster.

• -Remember to be careful when cleaning Amber has an approximately Mohs Hardness Value of 2.5, which means it’s a very soft gemstone, and can be scratched.