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New:
Micro organisms in a bubble? An angiosperm bud leaf is included in a piece of Baltic amber of my collection (upper picture). On the back of the leaf there are one big and some small bubbles. Within these bubbles, there are balls measuring ca. 55 µm, many of them are loose and movable. The surfaces of those transparent balls, which remember somehow on snail eggs, seem to be unstructured. Some of them seem to show a darker core. Partly they were penetrated by fungus hyphens later. A bundle of fungus hyphens is also visible near the base of the bud leaf on the outside (upper picture, left above). As those fungus hyphens are grown into the resin still not completely hardened, the ballformed organisms must have grown a bit earlier. Some of them seem to be stiffened during dividing themselves (picture right). Are they anorganic forms, however? Who knows a solution?? (Please email to the author!) |
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Claw? Thorn? Between his amber collection Jörg Wunderlich discovered a curious inclusion shaped as a claw, 3 millimeters long. A roentgen image will follow here. Couldn't it be a seed grain also? Maybe that the shape of the right part of the inclusion is not quite original, but somehow swollen. If you have an idea, please mail to Jörg or me! |
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Fungus? In a piece of Bitterfeld amber M. Kutscher found a collection of small organisms that resemble tiny balloons. Files, like hyphens which partly branch out (behind!), are connected with cuff-like parts of each of these "balloons" measuring 0.25 mm. Perhaps related to mold fungus, or to meldew fungus? (At the right rim of the picture the next "balloon".) |
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Seed of Orchideae? Small grains, approximately 0.25 mm in diameter, are found in three pieces of amber, which look astonishingly similar to vanilla grains. Vanilla is the fermented seed of a tropical climbing Orchidea and is seen frequently in tropical greenhouses. Does anyone have another interpretation of this image? |
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Imperfect fungus?
Jörg Wunderlich sent me a piece of Baltic amber with a mesh of branching
cellular files. The single cells measure about 12 µm and diminish
at the tips of the branches. Immediately nearby there is an arthropod´s
leg and two stellate hairs. Or are that parts of algae coats growing on
stones or tree bark?
Solved: Dörfelt & Wunderlich defined it as a bluegreen alga "Rosaria succini" (Cyanophyta, new species). A related species grows on tree bark in New Caledonia. |
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Mini Organisms or
what in the world is it?
M. Kutscher discovered three strange inclusions in a piece of Bitterfeld amber, which consists of a heading (0.25 mm) partially recognizable only as framework and a short tail, from which three thin hairs (2.5 µm) protrude. One of the hairs is straight (approximately 15 mm long!) and both of the others are wound up in large spirals (photo left, above). A few days after I saw this find, I discovered two equal inclusions in a piece of Baltic amber; the "headings" more complete, but burst, possibly by decay gases(?). One of these inclusions was situated directly on a peeled off leg (of a mite?), as if belonging to it. Small, sculptured "wafers" and small thorns belong to the "heading" (photo left, down, combined from seven sharpness layers; a part of a hair spiral is to be seen under the beginning of the "tail". Length of photo 0.27 mm). New: In a third piece of amber (Bitterfeld, Collection Kutscher) I found just another specimen, preserved similar as the first one, but probably with some traces of the interior. All known specimens are from the same aber type with embedded miniature droppings, stellate hairs, mites, and algae files. To the left, partly visible in the lower portion of this image, the skin is removed. In the interior the framework (see first image) is visible, which seems to continue in the right part of the object, beyond the intact skin. Possibly the framework is a continuation of the "hairs". Beneath, with a slightly stronger magnification, is one of the "wafers" - fat least five of them were attached to the object. NEW: The riddle is solved!! Jan Koteja (+) showed that these inclusions are parts of the sucking mouth of an aphid!! |