The film Jurassic Park is an adaptation of a book, by Michael Crichton, of the same name, which was

published in 1990.  Mr. Crichton must be a very imaginative man, because it was only the late 1980’s

that scientists realised that the cell structures were preserved in insects in amber.  Once that had been

discovered, the race was then on to discover DNA preserved in the insects cells.

 

Our staring point has to be the Jurassic mosquito.  Here is a nice shot of the famous amber-preserved

mosquito from the film.  Interestingly, this beautiful Dominican Republic amber comes from the

fossilized resin of a leguminous tree (Hymenaea protera) which is itself extinct. This ancient Hymenaea

is the probable ancestor of present-day West Indian locust or "guapinol" (Hymenaea courbaril), a large

canopy tree of the tropical American rain forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, unfortunately, the film-makers have happened to choose a male specimen of Toxorhynchites rutilus (commonly referred to as the elephant mosquito).  You can tell it is a male mosquito because of the hairy antennae.   In mosquitoes, as is so often the case elsewhere, the female of the species is more deadly than the male.  Only the female sucks blood.  Also unfortunate is the fact that T. rutilus just so happens to be the only species of mosquito that doesn’t suck blood at all!  Not the male, and not the female.  T. rutilus feeds on honeydew and sap.

 

Moving away from that particular blunder, it is an interesting fact that so far there are no known insect-bearing Jurassic ambers.  The oldest known fossil mosquito, Burmaculex antiquus, was found in Burmese amber from the mid-Cretaceous (99.6-89.3 million years ago). Indeed, contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes from any era fossilised in any kind of amber are extremely rare.  There is one recorded specimen in Canadian amber, a handful known in Baltic amber, and a few tens of specimens in Dominican amber.  This must be because pre-historic mosquitos did not live in the forests of resin-producing trees. 

 

But there are other biting insects which may have fed on dinosaurs.  There is one

specimen of a sandfly preserved in Lebanese amber which has large mouthparts

similar to those of a living species that feeds on the blood of crocodiles.  This type of

fly could well have fed on the blood of dinosaurs.  However, once again, it is only the

female sandfly that sucks blood and this hapless specimen is, once again, a male!

 

So what happens to an insect when it is preserved in amber?