Stunning 15 Million Year Old Flower Trapped in Amber Identified as New Species

Amber is natures way of taking a moment in time and preserving it for us to find millions of years later , usually it's a last moments of a prehistoric insect or bits of plants but this find although not unique is very rare.
Renowned entomologist George Poinar went on a field trip in 1986 to an amber mine in the Dominican Republic where he collected 500 amber samples mostly containing insects , they kept him busy for years until he noticed this specimen of a complete flower trapped within natures time capsule which is believed to be at least 15 Million Year Old.

Although scientists often find plant fossils in amber, they're usually just fragments - a petal here, a stamen there. Intact specimens are rare

Intrigued by his find and believing the flowers could be from the Strychnos genus he sent high rez pictures the flower to Lena Struwe, professor of botany in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences who is an expert on that particular genus to see if she could identify the plants , none of the 200 known species of the genus Strychnos matched what she saw , the plant was unknown to science.

In more than 20 years of work, she has named one new plant family, discovered three new genera and about 50 new species. "This fossil turned out to have particular significance for our understanding of the evolution of plants in the Caribbean and the New World tropics," Struwe says. "The discovery of this new species in a 30-year-old amber collection highlights that we still have many undiscovered species hidden away in natural history collections worldwide and not enough taxonomic experts to work through them.
phys.org...

The fact that this is a new discovery is pretty cool but not nearly as cool as the specimen itself , if you have the opportunity click the images in the link for a close up view of this captured moment in time.
Stunning !

What an amazing discovery! That thing must be worth a fortune! Thanks for sharing!!!!

Great find....literally!

It's things like this that make me believe the Voynich Manuscript with it's many pictures of unknown plants may be an authentic work. There is so much we don't know.

Identified as 'new' species?

15 million years old seems quite old to me




It seems there are many more to be found as it says, "hidden away in natural history collections".

So much to discover right under our noses

WONDERFUL!
I hope scientists can bring it back.

a reply to: gortex

so this species must have died out or evolved to a point where we no longer recognize it - I wonder if this specimen will help experts fill in any missing pieces or bridge any connections between older plant species and the ones still around today.

What a fascinating find - thanks for sharing Gortext S & F!

a reply to: gortex

30 years of sitting, I wish someone could dig through the back rooms and drawers in all of the little and big collections, we may learn huge things about our past!

originally posted by: IAMTAT
WONDERFUL!
I hope scientists can bring it back.

No! What's dead and gone should stay dead and gone. No god like action, they will just create "monsters" if alowed to much.

It is wonderful though

Very cool find My wife and I collect fossils and minerals, this would be an incredible specimen to add

Great find,
I had read about this on another site and the age given it seems is an arbitrarily conservative one, because being trapped in the amber, they are difficult to date, and could be up to 45 million years old.

That's like looking into a time machine (I'm thinking of the short movie "Time Trap"). Think of all the things that have happened and that little block of amber and the plant survived them all.

fabulous. great pics