Even around 200 years after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s death, the poet’s thirst for research continues to generate new scientific findings. During his lifetime, Goethe collected and kept numerous pieces of amber from the Baltic Sea in addition to many minerals and rocks. During a closer examination of this amber collection, paleontologists have now discovered an ant fossil that is around 40 million years old. Thanks to its good preservation in primeval tree resin, this ant now provides valuable information about the species and its relationships. The researchers were even able to look inside the prehistoric ant and make structures of the endoskeleton in the head and chest area visible.
Ambers are unique time capsules for past living environments. Because when primeval trees released this tree resin millions of years ago, small animals and plant remains were repeatedly trapped in the viscous mass. When the tree resin hardened, these inclusions remained preserved in the amber – to this day. The famous poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also interested in amber as part of his natural history studies. However, he did not collect this material out of biological interest, but primarily because he was fascinated by the optical properties and transparency of amber. For example, Goethe ground lenses out of fossilized tree resin in order to be able to observe certain color spectrums for his color theory. The poet left behind an amber collection that still includes a total of 40 pieces. They come from the Baltic Sea region and are now kept by the Weimar Classic Foundation in the Goethe National Museum.
Fine structure of an extinct ant
Now biologists led by Brendon Boudinot from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research in Frankfurt have examined the amber in Goethe’s collection in more detail for the first time. They discovered a total of three fossil inclusions of animals in two pieces of amber. The poet probably didn’t even notice these million-year-old inclusions, because to the untrained eye the fossil animals in the unpolished stones are barely visible. Only when the researchers analyzed the amber at the German Electron Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg using X-ray micro-computed tomography did the contents of the amber become clearer. The recordings revealed: The preserved remains of a fungus gnat, a black fly and an ant were hidden in the amber pieces from Goethe’s collection. Thanks to the high resolution of the scans and the good state of preservation of the fossils, these finds now provide new insight into the insect world around 40 million years ago.
The focus of the now published study by Boudinot and his team is the ant discovered in Goethe’s amber. “The ant belongs to the extinct species Ctenobethylus goepperti, which is very common in amber,” explains co-author Bernhard Bock from the Phyletic Museum at the University of Jena. “However, thanks to their good state of preservation and extensive research, we were able to describe them in more detail than ever before.” The images and digital 3D models made the fine hairs on the body of the worker ant visible, but also revealed for the first time the internal structures of the head and thorax of this extinct insect species. This provides valuable new information about the species and its relationships. “We completely reprocessed the specimen and, thanks to the newly acquired information, created a 3D reconstruction that can be accessed online,” reports co-author Daniel Tröger from the University of Jena. “This model will help colleagues around the world to identify and compare other fossils of this species.”
Tree nests in Europe’s coniferous forests
The analyzes showed that the extinct ant species Ctenobethylus goepperti had great morphological similarities with the ant genus Liometopum, which still lives in North America and in warmer regions of Europe. The researchers therefore assume that the ancestors of these ants were a sister group of the amber ants. This also helps to draw initial conclusions about the lifestyle of Ctenobethylus: “Today’s representatives of Liometopum live in tree nests made of a cardboard-like material,” write Boudinot and his colleagues. “It is therefore likely that Ctenobethylus goepperti was also a primarily arboreal species that occurred in the moist, warm coniferous forests of the European Eocene.” The researchers suspect that Ctenobethylus was a similarly paleoecologically important ant group as Liometopum is today. But due to climate change and vegetation changes, this prehistoric ant then became extinct.
“Goethe is considered the founder of morphology and would probably have been enthusiastic about how we were able to gain valuable insights in this field using completely new methods,” says Bock. “At the same time, the results show the value of such old collections. It is fascinating that a piece that comes from his hand and the time in which this science began can still enrich us so much today.”
Source: Brendon Boudinot (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) et al., Scientific Reports, doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-36004-4