| is valued for its botanical and animal inclusions that are trapped by the sticky resin as it flows fulfilling its role in protecting the plant. Of course, other life is captured including microscopic bacteria that often produce gas bubbles, and various fungi. Both the botanical and animal inclusions not only add beauty, but also are of potential scientific value in the study of taxonomy and evolution. Animal inclusions are usually invertebrates, specifically arthropods, and only extremely rarely a vertebrate such as a small lizard. Fossil resin inclusions are overwhelmingly insects, which naturally follows from the resin’s evolutionary origin as a physical means of protecting plants from insect pests.
Geological data for amber from sedimentary deposits in the Dominican Republic predict an age dating to the Oligocene, in the range of 20 to 30 million years old, presuming the resin is a primary in situ deposit, and not a secondary deposit by transport/erosion etc. Dominican amber from Cotui, however, is Pliocene or Pleistocene, has larger and more insects, and is otherwise indistinguishable from older material from the dated sedimentary deposits. This older fossil resin is from deep mines in the hillsides, and the extraction was a dangerous proposition, with risk of being buried in a cave in. The insect inclusions in Dominican amber are fairly abundant, the insects larger, and the amber of higher clarity than found in Baltic amber. Though uncommon, fossil association are found more frequently in Dominican amber.
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