Baltic Amber

Baltic Amber
	; Paleogeography of Early-Mid Eocene Europe, showing location of Baltic (labelled Gdansk), Bitterfeld and Ronvo amber deposits.
Age (Ma)
Start:	47.8
End:	41.3
System/Period:	Paleogene
Series/Epoch:	Eocene
Stage/Age:	Bartonian
Location
Location:	Baltic Sea region
Country:	Europe
Coordinates:	54.9°N, 19.9°E
Diversity
Genera:	57
Species:	146

Baltic amber is 34-48 million years old (Seyfullah et al. 2018), having been deposited during the Lutetian stage of the Middle Eocene. The main deposits of Baltic amber are on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic and similar ambers are widespread on the territories of the Central and Eastern Europe and for a long time attracted attention of geologists, entomologists, and other researchers. The age and sources of amber from different regions of Europe have been a subject of discussion for many decades. There is also debate over the plant family which produced the amber, with evidence supporting relatives of either an Agathis or a Pseudolarix (Henderickx et al., 2012). Because amber easily withstands repeated redeposition and because its mineralogical characteristics are variable, an important role in settling these issues is played by organic inclusions, particularly the relatively well-studied inclusions of ants.

Radchenko and Dlussky (2017) - As was already stressed by Wheeler (1915) and supported by modern data (Guénard et al. 2015), the ants from Baltic and other Late Eocene European ambers might be placed into two main zoogeographic complexes: temporary Palaearctic/Holarctic, and tropical, mainly Indomalayan and Australasian.

Genera known from Baltic amber

Species known from Baltic amber

Location of Formation

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