TerraTreasures and Adventures101 offer this authentic Dominican Amber gemstone

the first fossil Queen Leaf Cutter Ant, along with a winged termite
in an authentic Dominican Amber Gemstone
excavated in the La Bucara amber mine in the Autumn of 2011
this specimen has been examined by paleoentomologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
and there are no other Queen Leaf Cutter Ants known in any other amber deposit
DR5089QueenLeafCutterAnt
$4,500.00 No Reserve

This authentic Dominican amber gemstone contains an extremely rare Queen Leaf Cutter Ant, along with a winged termite. There are only a few specimens of Leaf Cutter Ants known from Dominican amber, there are no Leaf Cutter Ants known from Baltic Amber. The Leaf Cutter Ants in Dominican amber are the earliest reports in the fossil record of this intriguing family. This specimen has been examined by paleoentomologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This specimen is worthy of any museum's collection.

The following information is from the Smithsonian National Zoo Think Tank http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ThinkTank/Animals/LeafCutterAnts/default.cfm

Distribution and Habitat
Leaf-cutter ants make up the majority of the biomass in the New World tropics. They support forest ecosystems by keeping soil turned and aerated and they recycle vegetation and soil nutrients. There are about 35 different species of leaf?cutter ants.

A mature colony has from three to eight million ants at any given time. Generally, the population has a queen and her sterile worker daughters. Leaf-cutter ants live in underground nests. The nest is a moist, humid environment good for growing the ant's food, fungus. They are also protected from predators and parasites. Chambers in the nests are used for fungus gardens, egg hatching, and trash disposal. Full-sized colonies can have 3,000 chambers and extend 18 feet (6 m) underground. Trails leading to and from the nest, excavated by the ants, are the transportation routes for leaf collection.

Physical Characteristics
Leaf-cutter ants have a three-part body consisting of a head, thorax, and abdomen. There are three pairs of legs attached to the thorax. Reproductive males and females have two sets of wings. There are different castes of leaf-cutter ants, each with slightly different sizes and body parts. Soldiers and all workers are sterile females. The castes are: queen, winged females, winged males, soldiers, foragers, leaf preparers/degraders, planters, and caretakers.

At a foraging site, workers hold themselves in place on a leaf with the hooks on the ends of their legs. They slice the leaf horizontally with sharp, saw-toothed mandibles jaws) that vibrate 1,000 times per second. Once the leaf is cut, it is lifted overhead, held in place by the mandibles, and carried back to the nest.

Communication
Leaf-cutter ants communicate by releasing biochemical compounds called pheromones. Each ant receives its colony's distinct odor shortly after hatching from the egg. Other pheromones identify each individual ant according to its caste and job.

Life Span
A colony will live ten to 15 years ? as long as the single queen ant lives. Since the queen is the only reproductive individual in the colony, when she dies the colony begins to fade.

Diet
Leaf-cutter ants eat the new growth of fungus grown on the mulch they make from the leaves of many plants. The forager ants follow pheromone trails to and from the nest as they collect leaves, and smaller workers then lick the leaves to remove bacteria or other harmful materials from the leaves. The leaves are clipped into smaller fragments, fertilized by defecating and salivating on them, and by chewing, crushing, and molding leaves into pellets. Planter ants pluck fungus strands from other fungus gardens and implant them on freshly prepared leaf mulch. Caretaker ants harvest the fungus and carry it to nest mates and the queen. The fungus is a clone of the fungus in the original parental nest; it has been used by leaf-cutter ants for about 25 million years.

Reproduction
In response to a variety of internal and environmental cues, the queen in a mature colony will produce another queen and reproductive males every one or two years. Males die after mating and the queen will settle to the ground, discard her wings, and start a new colony.

Husbandry
The colony in Think Tank is tiny. It is housed in man-made, almost life-sized chambers. Temperature, humidity, and ventilation are adjusted by the ants and zoo keepers.

Ants are most widely recognized as being the most successful of all insects, they outnumber in individuals all other arthropods. Ants today are represented by approximately 14,000 living species and have significant roles in some of our most important ecosystems such as the tropical rain forests. Ants have their first abdominal segment extended into a nodelike stalk (pedicel), possess mostly elbowed antennae with an extended first segment, and have a quadrate pronotum. All ants are euosocial and most colonies consist of queens, males and various types of workers which are sterile wingless females. Only the males and fertile females are winged. At certain times of the year, winged males and queens are produced and engage in mating flights. Ants have been described in mid Cretaceous ambers and represent the earliest fossil record for the aculeates. The oldest described ant was Sphecomyrma freyi (Wilson et al. 1966) based on two worker ants found in mid Atlantic coastal plain amber about mid Cretaceous in age. The possible ant specimen found by A. Acra in Lebanese lower Cretaceous amber has been studied and has been determined to not be an ant, probably an aculeate wasp, thus the first reports of ants in the fossil record are several specimens described from the mid Atlantic coastal plain amber (Grimaldi et al 1998) until late winter 2002 when Grimaldi, Engel and Nascimbene published on the fossiliferous amber of Myanmar (Burma) - 'Fossilferous Cretaceous Amber from Myanmar (Burma): Its rediscovery, Biotic Diversity, and Paleontological Significance' American Museum of Natural History Novitates Number 3361 published March 26, 2002, if the Burmese amber is Cenomanian in age then the Burmese ants would be the oldest ants in the fossil record.

Some photos of our last amber excavations in the American Midwest June 2010

Some photos of our last amber excavations in Asia January 2010 (new top secret location for now)

Some photos of our amber excavations in August 2007 at La Toca and La Bucara amber mines

Description
This is an authentic Dominican Amber Gemstone excavated in the La Bucara Amber Mine in the early part of 2011.

This beautiful authentic Dominican Amber gemstone is offered here with a complete satisfaction guarantee, if you are not satisfied with your purchase you can return any specimen within 14 days for a full refund.

Dominican Amber
In the Dominican Republic, Hymenaea trees are called Algorrobo. The Hymenaea tree exudes vast amounts of resin which over millions of years of pressure hardens into amber. Generally amber is found because a landslide along a steep slope in the mountains exposes veins of black lignite. If the lignite contains amber it is gradually extracted by digging along the vein with picks and shovels. After the amber is found it is chiseled by hand out of the shaft walls, put into burlap sacks and passed out of the mine where it is separated from the rock by machete. Larger chunks of amber make it possible to view inclusions almost immediately by holding the amber up to sunlight to determine if a large inclusion has been discovered. Fossil bearing amber is polished locally. To view photos and videos of our some of our amber excavations in the blue amber mines in mountains of the Dominican Republic and to see a small java applet of the amber mines click here - (opens in a new browser window).

Shipping and Insurance
Within the USA - shipping and insurance is $7.00 - we ship all specimens US Postal Service Priority Mail. Outside of the USA - shipping and insurance to any country outside of the USA including Canada is $27.00 - we ship US Postal Service Global Express Mail. If you require any other method of shipping please contact us.

Payment
Payment is required within 7 days of the end of the auction. We Accept Pay Pal. Multiple items can of course be combined for one shipping cost. We ship all specimens upon receipt of payment. Pay us Instantly and Securely with Pay Pal - fast, easy, and secure payments for all of your purchases!

About Us
We have been collecting amber in the field and prepping rough fossil amber specimens since 1993. Photographs of our specimens have appeared in National Geographic, Nature, Science, Scientific American, Discover, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and others. We have been featured in PaleoWorld's The Amber Hunters. We offer authentic museum quality Dominican Amber display specimens of rare insects in amber and also authentic rare Dominican rough unprepared amber for sale. Our collections include museum quality rare insects in amber, unusual botanicals and flowers in amber and also rough unprepared Dominican Amber gemstones. We have traveled many times to the Dominican Republic where we have chiseled beautiful amber gemstones out of the lignite layers deep in the amber mines north of Santiago. We have excavated in the Palo Quemado and Los CaCaos blue amber mines and also in La Nueva Toca and the world famous La Toca amber mines way up in the mountains north of Santiago. For many years we have extensively collected mid Cretaceous New Jersey amber in the Raritan formation of central New Jersey and have traveled many times to collect late Cretaceous and early Paleocene amber in the Hanna formation of eastern Wyoming. We have collected mid Cretaceous amber in the Black Creek formation of eastern North Carolina and we have spent weeks collecting mid Cretaceous amber in the northern most Tundra of Alaska. Some of our most recent collecting trips have been in October of 2003 to the western Aleutian Islands some 1000 miles west of Anchorage to explore and collect Miocene amber, August of 2004 and April of 2006 we were back in the Dominican Republic to collect Miocene amber from the Palo Quemado amber mines which have recently closed due to the miners finding little amber, we were back to the Dominican Republic in April of 2006 to video in the La Toca amber mines, and most recently in August of 2007 we excavated in La Toca and La Bucara. The La Toca amber mines had much water whereas on the other ridgeline the La Bucara amber mines were nearly dry! We collected much amber from both La Toca and La Bucara. Recently in January 2010 we have collected at a new site of early Eocene amber in Asia. As these specimens are examined and prepared we will post some additional photos of this new locality.

We have donated many hundreds of amber specimens to museums in the United States and have several dozen new species of insects in amber named after us. We have examined several thousand specimens of rough Burmese amber and have prepped many new Burmese fossil amber specimens. We have traveled to Europe with colleagues to examine unusual spectacular Dominican Amber specimens in private collections and we consider the amber curators of the museums in Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata and New York City our friends. Exploring for and collecting amber along with the examination and research of amber is our passion.
To view photos and videos of our some of our amber excavations in the amber mines in mountains of the Dominican Republic and to see a small java applet of the amber mines click here - (opens in a new browser window). Our amber comes direct from the Dominican Republic amber mines east of the world famous La Toca amber mine. These specimens do not go through any middle men, we acquire these specimens from the miners and mine owners directly at the amber mines.

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