amber represents eternity , so the mating of a pair of insects is also eternal.
About 
1 million years ago, there were two insects doing The Great Harmony of Life . A drop of resin fell down and just wrapped the two insects in it.
The two bugs didn't even have time to struggle, they were frozen in that moment.
The exquisite lake
For these two insects, it may be a very embarrassing thing, but for scientists, this amber is priceless.
There is no specimen that better illustrates insect life, and it is preserved in such high definition.
Let us walk into this amber and see what happened 41 million years ago?
Clear amber
Prehistoric amber
A piece of amber was discovered at Monash University in Melbourne, which contained two small bugs, and they were mating.
But obviously, this drop of resin is very unreasonable, and it freezes the young couple in the most embarrassing moment..
should be grateful that the world of insects is not as rich as humans, otherwise these two insects would be so angry that they would come to life.
So, how is amber formed? How come it's just right?
Amber is a kind of fossil . Its formation conditions are very harsh, so amber is very rare.
Amber is considered a kind of fossil
Many of the ambers sold on the market are imitations, and some even use glass.
The first element that forms amber is resin , which is generally the resin of Coniferaceae, Caenaceae, Araucariaceae and other plants, because they are rich in oil.
The second element is that the resin drips down and wraps the small animal .
It is relatively common for trees to drip resin, but not every drop can hit a lucky viewer, and not every lucky viewer can be locked inside.
The third element of pine tree resin
is that it has been buried underground for tens of millions of years and has undergone a series of chemical and physical reactions to form a hard and transparent object.
Of course, the things wrapped in amber are not necessarily animals, some are wrapped plant seeds, leaves , etc.
Since the resin completely isolates the air , the organisms inside will be preserved very well, which is of great research value.
The colors of amber are also diverse, generally related to the type of resin, the environment in which it is located, and the crustal activities it has experienced. Common amber colors include yellow, gold, blood, green, etc.
Some colors of amber
The most embarrassing amber
It is said that everyone found it incredible when they discovered it, because it was so clear, as if these two bugs were mating in front of people.
After observation by scientists, it was determined that these two animals were a certain kind of fly , which no longer exists and belong to extinct species .
The age of amber shows that it was a fly 41 million years ago. At that time, the earth still belonged to the Eocene . Human ancestors had not yet differentiated from monkeys, and the South American continent was still disconnected from the African continent.
During this period, whales had occupied the top of the ocean's ecological niche and evolved their first generation overlord - Basilosaurus .
On land, the earliest elephant , the earliest rhinoceros , and the earliest giraffe appeared one after another. By the way, giraffes were still short-necked at that time.
The first generation of cetacean overlords, Basilosaurus
In front of these giant beasts, these two flies seem so small, yet so indispensable.
is the so-called overlord of running water, an insect that is as strong as iron. No matter how extinct they are, insects can always keep their basic base, persisting unshakably for 400 million years .
Take these two flies as an example. They are just a species of flies.
The fly family belongs to the family Diptera, which has never been extinct since its birth. The earliest fly fossils are about 1.1 billion years old and are in the Cretaceous period.
Nectar-sucking flies
Compared with vertebrates, which are easily exterminated by families one by one, , insects say it is a trivial matter, no problem.
There are approximately 4,200 extant species of the fly family found everywhere except Antarctica.
Their mating time ranges from a few seconds to 2 hours. Their living habits are complex, some feed on food residues, and some even suck blood.
Scientists are still unsure of their living habits for the two flies sealed in amber.
Therefore, this pair of mating flies helps scientists study the journey of the fly family and why they have been able to endure for hundreds of millions of years.
Flies in amber
The meaning of amber
Amber is both a fossil and a natural handicraft.
It is said that the ancients of our country named it " tiger soul ", thinking that it was formed by the soul of tiger, , because was so beautiful that it shocked .
More than 3,000 years ago, European merchants exchanged it for gold at equivalent prices. 1htmlStarting in the 13th century, amber was gradually processed. In 11701, the King of Prussia ordered the construction of the Amber Palace, which was presented to Russia at the time in 11717.
The Amber Palace was once called the "eighth wonder of the world" because it was made of lakes and gold, using 18 tons of amber, and each square meter was worth 0 million.
The restored Amber Palace
But it is a pity that the Amber Palace was occupied by the Germans during World War II and then dismantled and taken away. Its whereabouts are still unknown. In addition to the artistic value of
, another value of amber is indescribable, that is, clone .
The world-famous super large IP - Jurassic , originated from a mosquito amber.
In the first Jurassic movie series, scientists extracted the blood from the stomachs of mosquitoes in amber and used cloning technology to obtain dinosaurs.
Mosquitoes have a very long history, and their ancestors can be traced back to the Carnian period of the Triassic .
Because mosquitoes lay their eggs in water, scientists have concluded that mosquitoes are likely to have experienced the Carnian rainstorm event about .233 billion years ago.
Mosquitoes in Amber
After the Carnian rainstorm, the dinosaur family suddenly emerged and began a 160 million-year reign. Mosquitoes sucked the blood of dinosaurs. This thing is very likely to have happened.
The hypothesis at the beginning of the Jurassic movie is based on science.
Therefore, the plan to extract DNA from the lake has been going on, but the effect is very unsatisfactory.
First of all, amber is also a fossil that has been tempered for hundreds of millions of years, so it is essentially an inorganic substance, and the organic components in it have long since disappeared in the long river of time.
Mosquitoes sucked the blood of dinosaurs
Secondly, every amber containing living things is extremely valuable. If you want to extract DNA from it, you must destroy the amber. If you fail, you will lose an amber.
The last thing is, even if the DNA of the dinosaur is really extracted, how to clone it?
Scientists have discovered mammoths that were tens of thousands of years ago, but they cannot be cloned using existing elephants.
Whose egg should the dinosaur, a creature that has been extinct for more than 65 million years, be born from?
Therefore, these two flies may have to be sealed, and the possibility of cloning them is very small.
However, this fly couple is not the only awkward couple, because thousands of miles away in Germany, the fossils of a tortoise couple were unearthed. Coincidentally, the two of them were also buried during mating.
Mammoth fossils found in the permafrost
The same embarrassing turtles
In Germany's Messer Fossil Pit , a pair of turtle fossils were unearthed They lived about 7 million years ago , also in Eocene Epoch.
At that time, Messer was still a lake. This turtle was called Allaeochelys crassesculptata. It is an extinct species, but there are still related species Pig-nosed turtle .
According to paleontologists, the two turtles mated in the shallow water area and happened to encounter volcanic activity at the bottom of the lake , which produced toxic gas .
The two turtles were poisoned and then sank to the bottom of the lake.
Turtle fossils unearthed from the Messel Fossil Pit
Since the entire lake bottom was filled with poisonous gas at that time, microbial activity was inactive, decomposers did not decompose the two turtle corpses immediately, so they were buried at the bottom of the lake. .
In the next 47 million years, after a series of environmental changes, Messel no longer had lakes.
But the creatures that once lived around it turned into large and small fossils and were buried underground, so there is today's Messel Fossil Pit.
The two mating turtles have also become one of the fossils here.
Unknown birds unearthed from the Messel Fossil Group
The pair of turtles and the pair of amber flies have become the talk of the Internet. Many people teased that their love will last forever.
But in fact, the life span of flies is very short, basically only mate once in their lives .
Turtles are not monogamous animals. Male and female turtles will mate with many members of the opposite sex..
can only say that fossils record moments, but they do not represent eternity.
Fossils record not only the moments of biological mating. On May 11, 2022, Chinese scientists discovered the well-preserved hadrosaurus embryonic fossil , which was named "Yingbeibei".
Countless extinction events have occurred in the history of life, but there are traces of them every time, and the reason is because of these fossils.
Inbeibei fossil
Perhaps one day, the original conclusion will be changed because of a newly born fossil.
