99 million-year-old 'perfectly preserved' flowers found in amber nodules

Two flowers have been discovered inside nodules of Burmese amber, in perfect condition. According to a new study, the flowers, named 'Eophylica priscatellata' and 'Phylica piloburmensis' have been estimated to be 99 million years old.

According to the study, the two flowers initially bloomed at the feet of dinosaurs that once inhabited present-day Myanmar. The amber containing the flowers was legally acquired from some local sellers before 2016.

According to a CNN report, this discovery "may shed light on how flowering plants evolved - a major episode in the history of life that was once described by Charles Darwin as an "abominable mystery".

"These particular flowers are almost identical to their modern relatives. There really are no major differences," explained Robert Spicer, one of the authors of the study, and professor emeritus in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at The Open University in the United Kingdom.

According to Spicer, these flowers shed some light on Darwin's "abominable mystery", as they establish an intelligible link with modern-day flowers that come under the same taxonomic heads. This posits these flowers at different points on similar evolutionary paths.

Spicer also added that many early flowers were exposed to fires in semi-arid landscapes since fires must have been a frequent (and prolonged) event for flowers to evolve.

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However, such dinosaur-era amber fossils are said to be quite rare. In this case, the deposits were only available in present-day Kachin State in northern Myanmar.

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology called for a moratorium on research on the amber sourced from Myanmar after 2017 when the country's military took control of some amber mining areas.

However, ethical concerns related to human rights abuse, in connection with the provenance of amber from the region, have emerged in recent years, which have turned such areas into ethical minefields.