Most fossils are parts of hard bone. Its spindle-shaped legs, veined wings and faceted eyes are perfectly preserved and clearly visible.

Now we know what the ancient insect looked like during life! Scientists study the genetic material of such canned individuals. Genetics managed to extract DNA (a molecule - a carrier of heredity) from weevil and other organisms captured by amber. The elimination of living organisms based on the obtained genetic information is not yet possible. And breeding, say, dinosaur breeds based on the use of genetic material extracted from their bones, apparently, will never be possible.

How do insects get into amber?

Think about how a wasp could have ended up in amber. Imagine a clear, hot day somewhere near the equator millions of years ago. By unfortunate accident, the wasp sits on the sticky bark of a tropical tree and, in vain trying to free itself from captivity, dies in a sticky resin. Flowing drop by drop on a tree trunk, resin fills the wasp as a whole. Then the tree also dies, it gradually decomposes, and a piece of resin with a wasp enclosed in it over time becomes harder and harder. Streams of water carry him along with the wasp buried in it. Then a piece of resin is immersed in the thickness of sedimentary rocks and disappears deep into the earth.

Interesting fact: the youngest amber (fossil resin) is 1.5 million years old, the oldest is 300 million years old.

Millions of years pass by. Species of animals and plants appear and disappear. The species to which our wasp belonged has long disappeared from the face of the Earth. And the piece of resin not only hardened, it turned into a fossil. Continents moving across the surface of the Earth collided. At the collision site, the earth's crust rose to the sky, dragging sedimentary rock with a piece of tar resting in it. And now, a paleontologist excavating in the mountains finds a piece of smooth transparent amber. Inside, a wasp awaits, having spent millions of years in a golden amber cage.

What else can be found in amber?

In a piece the size of a matchbox found 2 thousand ants. You can see the leaves and flowers of the primeval forest, preserved as in a good herbarium, or a whole brood of small spiders, just hatched from a tender white cocoon. They are captured with amber as in a snapshot of eternity.