A paleontologist is facing problems in Myanmar in the hunting of Dianasour Amber. Recently a conflict between the army and Kachin rebels fighting over sovereignty arose which is the reason behind it.
What is the Dinosaur Amber?
According to reports, after the film Jurassic Park interest in amber shifted from pure ornamentation to being lucrative collections.
Amber is hard, translucent fossilized resin, made from extinct coniferous trees of the Tertiary period. It’s typically yellowish in color. Moreover, has been used to make ornaments. However, the interest the people shifted from ornaments to Collectable items after in the film Jurassic Park it shows that the DNA of dinosaurs were extracted from one such amber.
Why does the Paleontologist say about the situation during the conflict?
“We almost could not reach the mining area because it was very dangerous. We sneaked in when the situation eased quite a lot, but no scientist was able to go inside after that,” the paleontologist said.
Hoping to find a Large chunk of it, Xing who is a part of the team extracting these Amber went back to Myanmar only to be disappointed. According to him, his sources couldn’t locate the source. However, he is suspicious that they broke it and sold the pieces.
How much can Paleontologist earn from such pieces?
Talking about the monetary value of these ambers. Paleontologist can earn upto $100,000 per piece. Particularly profitable are ambers that contain dinosaurs, plants, animals, or even insects such as ants and mosquitoes.
Previously a German collector, named Patrick Muller as per reports had found a tick trapped in spider silk inside an amber in Myanmar. The fossil was said to be almost 100 million years old. Which makes the value of the dinosaur amber a lot, making it one of a kind and very rare for the collectors.
Paul Selden, professor of geology at the University of Kansas said the few tick species discovered in Myanmar were among the oldest specimens known to science.
Previously, in Myanmar, four frogs were found trapped inside an amber. One of them was, in fact, identified as a new frog species called Electrorana limoae. The fossils were about 99 million years old.