Tens of millions of years ago, a tropical forest existed on what today is the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. In a matter of seconds but repeated thousands of times over, a wide variety of animals and plants became trapped in resin produced by a single tree of that forest, a canopy species known as the algarrobo. Over the ensuing eons, some of that resin became amber, preserving a representative sample of the primeval forest's denizens. While virtually all of those organisms are now extinct, close relatives living today provide behavioral and ecological clues that help tell stories in the amber. Here, take a look at a striking sample of flora and fauna discovered in amber from the Dominican Republic, dated to between 15 and 40 million years ago. To launch the slide show, click on the image at left.—Peter Tyson
Note: All images and information were drawn from The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World, by George Poinar, Jr. and Roberta Poinar (Princeton University Press, 1999).
