Ancient Insects, Enhydro Bubbles, and How Amber is Really Formed

Ryan Zschomler
Jun 22
3 min read

A Conversation with a Curious Collector – June Livestream Recap

🛒 Explore real amber fossils now at AmberBugs.comEthically sourced amber from Myanmar and the Dominican Republic, with authentic fossil inclusions, water bubbles, and museum-grade clarity.

💬 Customer: “I saw some of your livestream the other night. What were those little floating bubbles inside the amber pieces?”

Ryan: Great question. Those are ENHYDROs—tiny ancient water bubbles trapped inside amber. When you see one, you’re looking at a pocket of liquid (or sometimes air) that was sealed off 100 million years ago when the amber was still soft tree resin. These ENHYDROs prove the material is resin, not sap. Sap can’t trap bubbles like that—resin flows and hardens differently.

💬 Customer: “So what is amber, really? How does it form?”

Ryan: Amber is fossilized tree resin, not sap. Here’s the science:

Resin leaks out of tree bark—often when the tree is injured or under stress.
It traps insects, plant matter, air bubbles, and sometimes rainwater or dirt.
The resin gets buried under soil, protected from sun and oxygen.
Over millions of years, through heat and pressure, the resin undergoes polymerization—a chemical process that turns it into a stable fossil material.
That’s how we get amber. Some is 20 million years old (Dominican), others like Myanmar amber are up to 100 million years old, dating to the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs still roamed.

We even showcased one piece during the stream with a microscopic egg cluster inside an ENHYDRO—a fossil within a fossil.

👉 Learn more: Wikipedia – Amber Formation

💬 Customer: “What’s the difference between Dominican and Myanmar amber?”

Ryan: Dominican amber is about 20–30 million years old, much younger than Myanmar amber. It’s usually clearer, warmer in tone, and often contains termites, ants, and flies.

Myanmar amber is Cretaceous, about 100 million years old, and usually darker. It holds some of the rarest fossils ever found, including:

Scorpions
Baby mantises
Feathers
Ticks
Spider-mite interactions (we showed one during the stream!)

Both are amazing—but Myanmar amber tends to hold museum-grade inclusions that are scientifically valuable.

💬 Customer: “Did anyone find anything surprising in this stream?”

Ryan: One customer claimed a piece that turned out to contain a headless mosquito! Another picked up a Dominican chunk that had a click beetle and springtail together. We also had a green amber ENHYDRO with embedded eggs, and a possible egg sac that I couldn’t identify—possibly spider-related.

These fossils aren’t just cool—they help us understand prehistoric ecosystems. Parasitism, reproduction, insect evolution—you can literally see it frozen in time.

💬 Customer: “You mentioned posters on the stream too?”

Ryan: Yep! We unveiled our new Red Amber Poster. It walks you through how red hues form in amber, often due to oxidation in shallow soils or long-term UV exposure.

The posters are scientific, vintage-style, and only $16. They make great gifts or classroom tools. You can get yours here:👉 Amber Educational Posters – Shop Now