Life in amber /

Fossils entombed in amber have long engendered interest among the general populace as well as among biologists and paleontologists. Scientific interest in amber has been stimulated by recent work on biological specimens preserved in amber from the Dominican Republic and by continued work on specimens from the well-known Baltic deposits. Until now, the only recent overview of such fossils was Sven Gisle Larsson's Baltic Amber: A Palaeobiological Study (Klampenborg, Denmark, 1978), which covered only the Baltic forms. Poinar includes an overview of all major amber deposits, as well as the major types of organisms (especially insects and other arthropods) found therein, eight beautiful color plates, and more than 120 black-and-white photographs illustrating amber flora and fauna. This book, the most comprehensive available on the topic, will serve as a basic reference for those doing research on amber organisms, whether the researchers are undergraduates or faculty members. However, some descriptive terminology will be difficult for the novice (a glossary would have been helpful), and it would have been better if scales were included with all of the photos. Recommended for all undergraduate and graduate academic collections supporting biological and geological programs. J. Hannibal; Cleveland Museum of Natural History