112 million years ago, a rainforest thrived in what is now Ecuador; amber from the lost Early Cretaceous forest preserved insects, pollen, and a strand of spider web

Long before the cloud forests and volcanoes of Ecuador, there was another rainforest. It was hot, damp, and crawling with bugs and spiders, and that forest disappeared about 112 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Now scientists have dug up chunks of amber from that lost world, according to a study titled ‘Cretaceous amber of Ecuador unveils new insights into South America’s Gondwanan forests,’ published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on 18 September 2025. Inside are flies, beetles, wasps, pollen grains and even a ripped strand of spider web, all undisturbed for over a hundred million years.

A quarry that turned out to be a time capsule

The discovery was made in the Genoveva quarry, located near the town of Archidona in Ecuador’s Napo Province within a rock layer called the Hollín Formation in the Oriente Basin. According to the team's lead researcher, paleontologist Xavier Delclòs of the University of Barcelona, the discovery is “an incredibly exciting moment”. He mentioned that thousands of amber pieces were found within the rock formation, which is less than 70 centimeters thick, making it richer than any other known Cretaceous amber deposit in the Northern Hemisphere.


This is important because amber like this had never before been discovered in South America. Most of the Cretaceous amber deposits are found in the Northern Hemisphere within the old forests of Europe, Asia, and North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, then part of the supercontinent Gondwana, amber deposits were rare. As reported by the Natural History Museum in London, scientists had long puzzled over the reason. There were two main explanations: either the area had not been explored enough yet, or the resin-producing trees did not produce enough of it.

What is really sitting inside the amber

The study notes that the underground, root-formed amber at the site held no specimens at all, so the team looked at 60 samples of so-called aerial amber, which is resin that oozed out into open air rather than forming underground near tree roots. In total, 21 fossils or bio-inclusions of five distinct insect orders were found in the 60 samples, most of which (over 50%) were flies. One is suspected to belong to a previously unknown species of extinct fly family called Microphorites, which has only ever been found in amber. Other fossils include one beetle, one caddisfly, four parasitic wasps, two Hemiptera specimens, and a single springtail (Collembola), the most primitive of the group, along with a piece of spider web.

The small fossils speak volumes about the ancient environment. For example, caddisflies and midges needed fresh water to complete their life cycle; hence, the presence of both insects indicates the existence of bodies of water like pools or streams inside the forest. Moreover, rock samples from the same location contain the pollen and spores of various types of plants, including mostly ferns as well as flowering plants and conifers. This combination is indicative of a warm, swampy forest, very different from the drier and more open landscapes that existed in other parts of South America at the time.

Why paleontologists are so excited

David Grimaldi, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History, called the dearth of southern amber an “enigma.” This finding takes a bite out of the mystery. It gives researchers their first real glimpse of how insects and plants in the forests of Gondwana were evolving at a time when flowering plants were just beginning to take hold around the planet.

One of the study’s authors, Fabiany Herrera, a curator of fossil plants at Chicago’s Field Museum, said the modern Amazon forest bears little resemblance to the ancient one. At that time, conifers and ferns dominated the canopy. Flowering plants were only starting to take root, a change that would one day change the forests of the world, including the ones we know today.

A window that is still opening

The amber was formed when South America and Africa were slowly pulling apart from each other, ripping Gondwana into the continents we know today. Scientists gain a rare, direct look at life at that instant by examining what was trapped in the resin. Delclòs and his colleagues believe the Genoveva quarry is just the beginning. Similar deposits may be found elsewhere along the old edge of Gondwana, such as in Australia and Antarctica, and future excavations may add even more detail to the picture of this ancient time.

For now, one quarry in Ecuador has yielded a remarkable glimpse into the past. It has kept a 112-million-year-old summer afternoon frozen in place, insects and all, for us to finally look at.