Can We Make Dinosaurs from DNA in Amber?
- Ryan Zschomler
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
Can we make Jurassic Park in real life?
Imagine this: Millions of years ago, an insect, for the purposes of our blog: a tick, found its way onto the back of a dinosaur. The tick did what any tick would do: sank its mouth into the terrible lizard’s skin to enjoy a meal of blood.
Satiated for the moment, the tick began to look for another spot. Suddenly, it found itself knocked off its giant prize and fell into a sticky pile of resin from the tree above. Try as it may, the insect could not free itself and was entombed as more tree resin dripped on it from above. Destined to become a fossil, and preserved for all time within the amber, its final meal preserved in its belly for the rest of time.
99 million years pass by. The time is today. And then a miner in Myanmar digs up a chunk of amber.
The piece is then polished, to search for insects inside.
And the tick is revealed!
The piece is bought and sold during an Amberbugs livestream – and the question immediately arises:
“Can we clone our own dinosaur from this insect?”
Discussions ensue, discussions of creating our very own Jurassic Park… or rather, “Cretaceous Park” which would be more applicable to this particular piece, abound in the chat.
Is DNA preserved in amber?
But before you start searching on Zillow for remote islands large enough to host your business venture, the unfortunate answer is “No.” While the insect within looks like a “meal ticket” to your next great business venture, there is absolutely no chance of obtaining any viable “Dino DNA” to clone our very own dinosaur.
There are several reasons why we arrive at this dream-killer of an answer. Out of all, TIME is the main culprit.
DNA has what is called a “half-life,” which represents an amount of time it takes for the structure to break halfway down. The half-life of DNA is hundreds of years, 521 to be exact. In addition to this, Amber takes millions of years to fossilize, with an average range of 2 to 10 million years (Let’s face it, you’re going to learn something reading this blog!) to become the beautiful time-capsule gems that we all know and love. In the time it took for the amber to fossilize into the amazing pieces that cause such a stir on the Amberbugs live, time ensured a total degradation of the genetic gold within. While we’re left with something that might be museum-grade, unfortunately it is completely devoid of the quality of genetic material needed to start our business.
Now, before you start cursing out Father Time, it is not the only reason crushing our dreams of “Cretaceous Park.” There are several other factors contributing to the DNA not being usable.
The second dream-killing fact is the process of digestion. When we eat a meal, the food immediately begins to be processed by our digestive system. This isn’t just a human trait. Once the tick consumed its dino-meal, the blood entered its digestive system where enzymes go to work and begin breaking it down into nutrients to fuel the body. Unfortunately, folks, this digestion affects everything, including our precious DNA.
Our third culprit is the meal itself, blood. Blood contains enzymes that work like digestion, breaking down substances such as cells and DNA. “But blogwriter, why doesn’t your blood break down the DNA in your own body?” Great question dear reader! The short answer is that our bodies are amazing machines with self-protecting mechanisms built in. Without getting too far into the details, our body has processes to avoid attacking itself, and there is one which applies to our genetic material. But what a wonderful question!
Time, digestion, and enzymatic degradation are not the only culprits in this dream-killing narrative. Number four is the amber itself. Amber is a wonderful way to preserve these amazing inclusions that we find after millions of years, looking like they are taking a brief pause and ready to hop, fly, or crawl out of this time machine. But the resin’s chemistry, combined with heat and pressure over millions of years, destroys the genetic material contained within. The insect may look perfect, but its DNA is long gone.
Disregarding all that we just learned, we want to channel our inner Dr. Wu and press on, against all odds. Let’s quickly explore some remaining issues. The first is authenticating that what we have actually is dinosaur DNA. The piece of amber has traveled a long journey to get to us. Other animals, reptiles, and organisms over time, human beings, molds and bacteria, etc. have come in contact with the amber. The amber has passed through many different sources of contamination, likely mixing into any genetic material we think we can successfully recover. It is far more likely for us to end up cloning something that ISN’T a dinosaur than something that is.
In addition to the genetic stew that we have in front of us, if anything from the cretaceous did survive, the quality of the product will contain so many missing segments that we would have to do our best to substitute these missing genetic regions. This time, let’s learn from our mistakes and avoid hermaphroditic species that introduce more problems down the line. Understandably, this does not leave us very many options, and our chances of success narrow even further.
Now, let’s allow ourselves to dream for just a moment. Let’s disregard all that we just learned and suppose that we CAN find the perfect piece, our HOLY GRAIL of amber inclusions. What exactly are we looking for? What would this look like? I’m so glad that you asked!
While our minds may conjure images of a mosquito, we would actually prefer our find to be a tick. “Well, that isn’t too hard,” you say? Please, allow me to continue! One would not JUST be looking for a tick, but one who immediately upon dining on and completing a meal of the finest dinosaur blood, just so happened to wander aimlessly and immediately into our gooey resin. By some stroke of fate, the tick realized it was still able to breathe, surrounded by the very air that it was breathing moments before this tragedy, but forever encapsulated in an airy enhydro. Furthermore, the satiated insect would still be fully engorged with a translucent belly, showing us signs of its final meal and not just a hollow and empty cavern of a gut. This would be the ideal situation to be on our way to fortune and fame!
To wrap this dream scenario up, let’s just say that we have beaten time, nature, enzymatic processes, discovered the “Enhydro holy grail” as described above, successfully filled in the gaps in our DNA, confirmed that what we have is in fact dino DNA, and are ready to hatch our first exhibit. We’ve surmounted tremendous odds, and are standing around staring at an egg in an incubator. What could be expected? A gigantic feathered T-Rex? A three-horned Triceratops? Hopefully not a Raptor, though it would be extremely cool!
Based on the origin of this piece of amber, it is more likely that we amplify a species that was found in Myanmar. This would include Oculudentavis khaungraae, a hummingbird-sized, bird-like dinosaur found in Kachin amber. A Coelurosaurian Theropod, or a juvenile dinosaur whose feathered tail was preserved in amber. Or the large theropod, Gigantonauthus. These are three well-known species from amber found in Myanmar.
Would throngs of people fly to our island to see these ancient creatures? Unfortunately we will never know. As you can see, it is an impossibility to clone our very own dinosaurs from our amber inclusions.
Don’t let this detract from admiring these amazing time capsules! While we cannot use them to resurrect the past, we can use them to peer into a past that no humans witnessed. We can use them to learn about the world of life 99 million years ago. We just cannot clone dinosaurs from our Amber.
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