The World’s Oldest Amber: A Tiny Time Capsule from 385 Million Years Ago

What Did Scientists Find?

Paleontologists (scientists who study ancient life) in China discovered what they say is the earliest confirmed pieces of amber ever found. Amber is just fossilized tree resin — like the sticky sap that oozes out of trees, but turned to stone over millions of years.

• The amber is about 385 million years old (from a time called the Middle Devonian epoch).
• That makes it roughly 65 million years older than the previous record-holder.
• The discovery also shows that plants were making resin long before seed plants even existed.

Important Point: This find pushes back the known origin of amber by a huge leap and changes what we thought we knew about plant evolution!

What Is Amber, Really?

“Amber, specifically fossilized resin, is thought to be one of the ancient exudates of seed plants,” said Dr. Cihang Luo, a researcher with the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and colleagues.

Let’s break that down like you’re five:

• Resin is a sticky goo that some plants leak out.
• Seed plants are plants that make seeds (like pine trees or apple trees).
• Usually, seed plants push resin out through special spots on their surfaces or inside their bark and wood.
• This resin is a mix of special chemicals that help plants heal from:
  • Bug bites
  • Germs (like microbes)
  • Fires
• Over a very long time, with heat and pressure underground, the sticky resin hardens into amber.
• Sometimes, tiny creatures get stuck in the goo and are preserved like a prehistoric toy in clear candy. This helps scientists learn about old ecosystems.

How Did They Find This Tiny Amber?

Dr. Luo and the team did some detective work:

1. They collected about 10 kg of coal from a coal layer called the Hujiersite Formation near Hoxtolgay in Xinjiang, China.
2. They shined ultraviolet (UV) light on the coal to spot little clumps of amber hiding inside.
3. Using a microscope, they picked out 241 tiny pieces by hand — most were only 0.1 to 0.5 mm wide (super tiny!).
4. They studied what the amber looked like:
   • Most were see-through to cloudy
   • Colors from pale yellow to dark brown
   • Some had little bubbles
   • They glowed bright blue under UV light

The coal layer they came from is Middle Devonian — about 385 million years old.

Why Is This Such a Big Deal?

Until now, the oldest confirmed amber was from the Late Carboniferous period, about 320 million years ago.

• Before the Permian period, we only had two sure amber records, both from the Carboniferous:
  • One from the US (320 million years ago), likely from an extinct seed plant called cordaitalean gymnosperms (cousins of conifers).
  • One from Canada (300 million years ago), probably from seed ferns.

But this new Hujiersite amber is older — and here’s the kicker:

Important Point: Seed plants had NOT evolved yet when this resin formed! Seed plants only showed up later in the Late Devonian (372–359 million years ago). So the resin must have come from non-seed plants.

What Plants Made the Resin?

The scientists used fancy machines (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography with mass spectrometry — basically tools that smell and see chemicals) to check the amber’s recipe.

• Its chemicals look like resin from modern and fossil conifers (like pine trees).
• But conifers are seed plants — and those didn’t exist yet!

So the team thinks the resin most likely came from:

• Progymnosperms — extinct seedless plants that were ancestors of seed plants, OR
• Tree-like lycopsids — ancient pipe-carrying plants

Both plant types were found as fossils in the same area. But because no plant bit was stuck in the amber, they can’t be 100% sure who made it.

What Does This Teach Us?

The findings show that the “recipe” to make complex resin was already in place in some non-seed plants by the Middle Devonian.

The researchers propose that early resin probably helped plants:

• Seal up wounds
• Fight off fungal infections

They don’t think it was for stopping insect bites, because we don’t see proof of lots of insects eating plants until later (Carboniferous). Also, big wildfires were common back then, and those may have pushed plants to evolve wound-sealing resin.

Important Point: This is the earliest confirmed amber and likely the earliest fossil resin from non-seed plants — rewriting the resin story!

Where Was This Published?

The team’s paper was published online July 15 in the journal Science Advances.

• Title: The earliest amber from the Middle Devonian of China
• Authors: Cihang Luo et al.
• Year: 2026
• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh1266

Summary

Chinese scientists found the oldest confirmed amber ever — about 385 million years old. It came from a time before seed plants existed, meaning non-seed plants were already making resin. The tiny pieces were pulled from coal with UV light and microscopes. This changes our understanding of when and why plants started making sticky, healing sap.

FAQ

Q1: What is amber in simple words?
A: Amber is old tree sap that hardened into stone over millions of years. Sometimes it traps bugs or bits of plants inside.

Q2: Why is this amber special?
A: It is the oldest confirmed amber (385 million years) and shows plants made resin before seed plants evolved.

Q3: How did scientists get the amber out?
A: They used UV light to find glowing bits in coal and then picked 241 tiny pieces out by hand under a microscope.

Q4: What kinds of plants probably made it?
A: Likely progymnosperms or tree-like lycopsids — both are extinct non-seed plants.

Q5: What did the resin help plants with?
A: It probably helped seal wounds and block fungal infections, especially after wildfires.