Amber

While prehistoric insects encased in amber certainly are fascinating, they usually don't look all that different from today's insects. A newly discovered one, however, is so bizarre that it has been placed in its own unique family.

Tardigrades are notoriously hardy microscopic creatures, but one thing they’re not good at is fossilizing. Now an exceptionally well-preserved, “once-in-a-generation” tardigrade fossil has been found in amber, and assigned to a new species and genus.

One of nature’s most intriguing horror stories is that of the fungus that “zombifies” ants to spread its spores. Now, researchers have discovered the oldest known example of this kind of parasite at work, preserved in ancient amber.

The latest amber time capsule discovery comes from Oregon State University researchers who have identified a completely new, previously unknown genus and species of flower dating back 100 million years to the mid-Cretaceous period.

Scientists have successfully extracted DNA from insects trapped in amber – but any creatures you might revive from this would hail from the not-so-distant past of 2014. The study aims to work backwards to find the limits of DNA preservation.

The oldest known animal sperm sample has been discovered, dating back 100 million years. Dozens of ostracods were found in a piece of amber with their “soft parts” out, and their giant sperm measuring around a third of the animals’ body length.

Amber has offered us all kinds of fascinating insights about long-gone creatures that once inhabited the Earth. Joining them is a rare 99-million-year-old fossil that shows an enigmatic “hell ant” clamping down on its cockroach-like prey.

Most fossils are just bones, but occasionally striking specimens turn up bearing skin or feathers, encased in gemstones, and even preserving traces of DNA against all odds. Here's a look at some of the most incredible fossil finds of recent years.

Found preserved in 30-million-year-old amber, the "mold pig" is so different from anything else that it’s been placed in a new genus all of its own.

Amber can be a veritable treasure trove of ancient animals and insects, but it most commonly captures creatures that lived in forests – understandable, given the stuff starts life as tree sap. But now researchers have found a piece of amber bearing a strange mix of land and sea-dwelling creatures.

Scientist now have to reevaluate what they know – or thought they knew – about the evolution of millipedes due to a tiny, 8.2-mm member of the order Callipodida who got its many feet stuck in some tree resin, which turned up in Myanmar, 99 million years later, as a golden lump of amber.

​We've all heard about ancient insects getting preserved in amber (fossilized tree resin), with similarly-preserved items including dinosaur feathers, mammalian red blood cells and a bizarre spider. Now, for the first time, scientists have found an amber-encased prehistoric snake.