Amber of great palaeontological significance is flowing into China's jewellery market, fuelling a trade that dates back some 13,000 years. Ironically, banning this trade could be more damaging to science than letting it continue.
Fossiliferous ambers are being extensively destroyed by mining activity. The renowned Zhangpu amber from southeast China, for example, is being burned in the process of kaolin extraction. The Fushun amber site is closing after more than 110 years of adjacent lignite mining (B. Wang et al. Curr. Biol. 24, 1606–1610; 2014).
Amber affords exceptional preservation of insects and microorganisms, shedding light on ephemeral behaviours such as parasitism, predation and camouflage. These fossils often provide more detail than rock fossils about an organism's morphology, ecology, ethology and evolutionary history (see, for example, D.-Y. Huang et al. Sci. Rep. 6, 23004; 2016).
Amber excavation involves manpower and materials that are not available to palaeontologists. The jewellery trade instead provides them with the organismal inclusions, either directly as unwanted material or indirectly by preserving the fossils in finished gems for posterity.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, J., Wang, B. & Jarzembowski, E. Benefits of trade in amber fossils. Nature 532, 441 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/532441a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/532441a
This article is cited by
-
The revision of fossil big-eyed bugs suggests a peculiar evolutionary history of a peculiar true bug family (Heteroptera: Lygaeoidea: Geocoridae)
Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments (2023)
-
New fossil data and phylogenetic inferences shed light on the morphological disparity of Mesozoic Sinoalidae (Hemiptera, Cicadomorpha)
Organisms Diversity & Evolution (2019)