Frozen rainforest

A trove of tiny organisms fossilized in resin, including this Phoridae fly a few millimeters long, is worth its weight in gold, say the paleontologists who found the rare bounty in the western Amazonian basin.

The insects, fungi, and plants trapped in the amber provide direct evidence that rainforests existed in the region 10 to 15 million years ago, the researchers report in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.