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 thatscientists 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, although I still think cloning dinosaurs is a long way off. I came across an article recently that was published on March 25th of this year by Discover Magazine. According to the article, 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-boring. The pictures below show the spider that Ohl has been working with. He discovered that this spider had some extra company. The mantidfly larva can bee seen in the detail picture. The larva attached itself to the underside of the spider in order to get nutrition from the spider while the larva was developing. Mantidfly larva are true parasites; they latch onto female spiders, get dropped with the spider’s egg sack, eat the spider’s eggs, then they enter into a cocoon to emerge as adults. This ancient preserved specimen of this hard-to-catch phenomenon is one of only ten known mantidfly larva fossils that exist in the entire world. The piece of amber that the spider was discovered in is thought to be approximately 44 million years old. 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 I will be taking my grandchildren to the dinosaur zoo. In the meantime I can dream about the idea while I peer 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:

-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.

-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.