Fossil Amber with Rare Pseudoscorpion Flower Bud and Trophy Ant

This amber specimen combines a deep rich color, extreme clarity and a beautiful hand-polish, and has three outstanding inclusions:

• The rare inclusion is a pseudoscorpion, a minute and illusive predator that hunt in the forest litter looking for mites, springtails, and other insects (also see below about pseudoscorpions).
• The very uncommon inclusion is a flower bud, very seldom seen in amber.
• The trophy inclusion, a member of insect order Hymenoptera, is a large, colorful and exquisitely preserved ant. For reference, the distance across its spread legs is 18 mm.
• There are also 3Dipterans and a cisid beetle.

The Pseudoscorpion (also called a false scorpion) is a tiny arachnid of Order: Pseudoscorpiones (Chelonethida), is usually less than 4 mm (0.16 of an inch) and normally lives among humus, bark, and soil. There are some 2000 or so species worldwide, though they are rarely seen. They resemble true scorpions but lack the long abdomen and stinger, and are much, much smaller. The pedipalps are modified as pincers, bearing poison glands and thus their sting is not in their tails but in their arms.