Fossiliferous Cretaceous Amber from Myanmar (Burma): Its Rediscovery, Biotic Diversity, and Paleontological Significance

Amber from Kachin, northern Burma, has been used in China for at least a millennium for carving decorative objects, but the only scientific collection of inclusion fossils, at the Natural History Museum, London (NHML), was made approximately 90 years ago. Age of the material was ambiguous, but probably Cretaceous. Numerous new records and taxa occur in this amber, based on newly excavated material in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) containing 3100 organisms. Without having all groups studied, significant new records and taxa thus far include the following (a † refers to extinct taxa): For Plants: An angiosperm flower (only the third in Cretaceous amber), spores and apparent sporangia of an…