American paleontologist George Poinar Jr, who for decades has been researching Dominican amber, revealed the discovery of the fossil species Plukenetia as the first record of the genus in Hispaniola. The fossil flower was found in amber mines in the northern mountain range (Cordillera Septentrional) between Puerto Plata and Santiago.
Scientists date the Dominican amber as far back as 30 million years. In the recent amber stone, flower and parasitic wasp and fly fossils were found in the La Búcara mine in the Cordillera Septentrional.
The discovery was published in the Historical Biology scientific publication.
George Poinar Jr from the Oregon State University is an expert on Dominican amber.
“In tropical America there are about 105 genera with 1,800 species of which 65 are endemic,” Poinar describes. The paper describes the fossil as containing a complete, well-preserved senescent pistillate (functionally unisexual) pistillate flower with mature fruits, also a parasitic wasp with dark brown and black body, light brown antennae, eyes and legs.
“The assignment of the pistillate flower to the genus Plukenetia is based on the presence of a pedicel, four-lobed dehiscent capsules, four persistent sepals in the fruit, no petals and connate stylodes in a single column with entire stigmatic tips,” the paleontologist noted.
According to Poinar, the female parasitic wasp may have fed on pollen from adjacent male Plukenetia mínima flowers that were not preserved in amber.
In 2007, a millenary bee was found in a stone of amber, without a sting, carrying an orchid, it was found in one of the mines of the Dominican Republic.
According to investigations, it is estimated that the bee and the orchid were more than 10 million years old. It was reportedly the first time that an orchid fossil was found in the Dominican Republic.
Orchids are one of the most diverse plants in the world with more than 20,000 species. Before 2007, no fossilized orchid had ever been found.
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Orcid
Diario Libre
George Poinar Jr
Tandfonline
PBS
25 July 2022