National Geographic has an article about an ammonite in amber. The amber is from Myanmar and is 99 million years old. The study was published Monday in the journal PNAS by a group led by Chinese paleontologist Tingting Tu. As you might guess, it's the first known record of an ammonite found in amber.
In a study published Monday in the journal PNAS, researchers led by Chinese paleontologist Tingting Yu reveal what is likely the first known record of an ammonite found in amber. These extinct marine mollusks were ancient relatives of octopuses and squid, and they didn't venture on land. Finding an ammonite shell in a land-formed fossil is therefore as eyebrow-raising as finding dinosaur remains on the bottom of an ancient seafloor.
“Amber—ancient resins from trees—commonly traps only some terrestrial insects, plants, or animals,” says study coauthor Bo Wang, a paleontologist at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology. “It’s very rare to find some sea animals in amber.”
Researchers suspect that this resin came from a tree on the shoreline, and that it picked up a discarded ammonite shell and other flotsam as it tumbled into the sand. The fossil also contains other aquatic life—marine snails and relatives of today's pillbugs—as well as denizens of the coastal forest's leaf litter, including mites, flies, beetles, a spider, a parasitic wasp, a millipede, and a cockroach.
