---

a Super Rare Strepsiptera or Twisted Wing Parasite, a rare Stilt Legged Assassin Bug, a beautiful Cricket,
a Giant Lepidoptera, a Staphylinid Beetle and tiny flies
in an authentic Dominican Amber Gemstone
excavated in the La Toca amber mine in the Spring of 2009
DR9083
$875.00 No Reserve

---

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

Description This is a Super Rare Strepsiptera or Twisted Wing Parasite, a rare Stilt Legged Assassin Bug, a beautiful Cricket, a Giant Lepidoptera, a Staphylinid Beetle and tiny flies in an authentic Dominican Amber Gemstone excavated in the La Toca amber mine in the Spring of 2009. Why are Strepsiptera so rare? - the winged males usually only live a few hours. We have not found 2 Strepsiptera in Dominican amber in the last 15 years. DR9083 $875.00 No Reserve from wikipedia.org ..."The Strepsiptera (known in older literature as twisted-winged parasites) are an order of insects with nine families making up about 600 species. The early stage larvae and the short-lived adult males are free-living but most of their life is spent as endoparasites in other insects such as bees, wasps, leafhoppers, silverfish, and cockroaches. Male Strepsiptera have wings, legs, eyes, and antennae, and look like flies, though they generally have no useful mouthparts. Many of their mouth parts are modified into sensory structures. Adult males are very short-lived (usually less than five hours) and do not feed. Females, in all families except the Mengenillidae, never leave their hosts and are neotenic in form, lacking wings and legs. Virgin females release a pheromone which the males search for. In the Stylopidia the female has its anterior region extruding out of the host body and the male mates by rupturing the female's brood canal opening which lies between the head and prothorax. Sperm passes through the opening in a process termed hypodermic insemination.[1] Each female produces many thousands of triungulin larvae that emerge from the brood opening on the head, which protrudes outside the host body. These larvae have legs (which lack trochanters) and actively search out new hosts.[2] Their hosts include members belonging to the orders Zygentoma, Orthoptera, Blattodea, Mantodea, Heteroptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera. In the Strepsipteran family Myrmecolacidae, the males parasitize ants while the females parasitize Orthoptera. Strepsiptera eggs hatch inside the female and the planidium larvae can move around freely within the female's haemocoel, which is unique to these animals. The female has a brood canal that communicates with the outside world and it is through this the larvae escape. The larvae are very active, as they only have a limited amount of time to find a host before they exhaust their food reserves. These first-instar larvae have stemmata (simple, single-lens eyes) and once they latch onto a host they enter it by secreting enzymes that soften the cuticle, usually in the abdominal region of the host. Some species have been reported to enter the eggs of hosts. Larvae of Stichotrema dallatorreanurn Hofeneder from Papua New Guinea were found to enter their orthopteran host's tarsus (foot). Once inside the host, they undergo hypermetamorphosis and become a less mobile legless larval form. They induce the host to produce a bag like structure inside which they feed and grow. This structure, made from host tissue, protects them from the immune defences of the host. Larvae go through four more instars and in each moult there is separation of the older cuticle but no discarding ("apolysis without ecdysis") leading to multiple layers being formed around the larvae. Male larvae produce pupae after the last moult, but females directly become neotenous adults. The colour and shape of the host's abdomen may be changed and the host usually becomes sterile. The parasites then undergo holometabolous metamorphosis to become adults. Adult males emerge out of the host body while females stay inside. Females may occupy up to 90% of the abdominal volume of their hosts. Male Strepsiptera have eyes unlike those of any other insect, resembling the schizochroal eyes found in the trilobite group known as Phacopida. Instead of a compound eye consisting of hundreds of ommatidia, each with a large lens and capable of producing a partial image, the strepsipteran eyes consist of only a few dozen ommatidia separated by cuticle and/or setae, giving the eye a blackberry-like appearance. Multiple females may be seen within a stylopized host. Males are rarely seen. They may sometimes be seen at light traps or may be lured using cages containing virgin females. Strepsiptera may alter the behaviour of their hosts. Myrmecolacids may cause their ant hosts to climb up the tips of grass leaves, possibly to increase the spread of female pheromones to increase the chances of being located by males." 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 ref

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 $6.00 - 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 $25.00 - 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. 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.

top