Name: Insects
and Plants in fossil amber
Class
Insecta: Hymenoptera, Homoptera;
Kingdom
Plantae; Division: Magnoliophyta; Class: Magnoliopsida; Order: Magnoliales;
Family: Myristicaceae; Virola sp.
Geological
Time: Pliocene to Pleistocene
Size: Amber
41 mm long , 35 mm across, 5.9 grams
Location:
Andean Uplift Region, Andes Mountains, Colombia
|  This
piece of fossil amber displays a rare plant fossil inclusion, a
number of flowers of a tree of the genus Virola. Most, if not all,
species of Virola have a copious red resin in the inner bark. The
resin from a number of species is prepared as a hallucinogenic snuff.
Probably the most important species is Virola theiodora, a slender
tree 25-75 feet in height, native to the forests of the western
Amazon basin. The very small flowers, borne singly or in clusters
of 2 to 10, are strongly pungent. Several flies, two ants, a stingless
bee and a planthopper nymph are in association.
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