Paleontology Section, Institute of Geosciences, RheinischeFriedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 26;15(2):e0228843. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228843. eCollection 2020.
Vertebrate fossils embedded in amber represent a particularly valuable paleobiological record as amber is supposed to be a barrier to the environment, precluding significant alteration of the animals' body over geological time. The mode and processes of amber preservation are still under debate, and it is questionable to what extent original material may be preserved. Due to their high value, vertebrates in amber have never been examined with analytical methods, which means that the composition of bone tissue in amber is unknown. Here, we report our results of a study on a left forelimb from a fossil Anolis sp. indet. (Squamata) that was fully embedded in Miocene Dominican amber. Our results show a transformation of the bioapatite to fluorapatite associated with a severe alteration of the collagen phase and the formation of an unidentified carbonate. These findings argue for a poor survival potential of macromolecules in Dominican amber fossils.
保存在琥珀中的脊椎动物化石代表了一种特别有价值的古生物学记录，因为琥珀被认为是对环境的一种阻隔，防止了动物身体在地质时间内发生重大变化。琥珀的保存方式和过程仍存在争议，而且原始物质能在多大程度上被保存下来也值得怀疑。由于其高价值，琥珀中的脊椎动物从未用分析方法进行过检查，这意味着琥珀中骨组织的成分是未知的。在这里，我们报告了对完全嵌入中新世多米尼加琥珀中的化石蜥蜴属（有鳞目）左前肢的研究结果。我们的研究结果表明，生物磷灰石向氟磷灰石的转化与胶原蛋白相的严重改变以及一种未知碳酸盐的形成有关。这些发现表明，多米尼加琥珀化石中的大分子的生存潜力很差。
