Beetles in amber under

Beetles and bubbles click on pictures to see them larger
These beetles are pretty small compared to many beetles you'll see today but for beetles in amber they are about average size. Larger beetles can usually free themselves from the resin and even if they are already dead, the resin flow must be large enough to contain them. So stones with beetles much larger than these are pretty rare and valuable.

two different beetles and a large bubble

The long skinny specimen, showing hairs at end of abdomen and claws at end of legs

viewed on edge, the long beetle shows a rare hint of color as well as distinctive stripes

The dome shaped beetle has the remnant of a pattern on its back, but there is no way to know what the original colors were. There would be no point in trying to identify it anyway, since the species is almost certainly extinct, very few species that were around 25 million or so years ago are still with us today! The long skinny beetle has distinctive stripes and a rare hint of color. Insect pigments are not usually preserved in amber and most beetle colors are due to refraction anyway. The refractive properties of amber are such that any colors seen in amber are probably not the same colors that would have been seen in life.

This stone also has a fairly large moving bubble, but its movement is so slight that it is hard to distinguish from the illusion of movement normally caused by refraction.

amber gallery

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