Paleofauna of Dominican amber: the current state of research and comparative analysis
Abstract
Recently published papers and our own research results have enabled the authors to generalize the data on the paleofauna of Dominican amber, the largest deposit of the Miocene age fossil organisms. The research tasks included geographic and stratigraphic examinations, the study of research history and an attempt of synchronization of paleofans with other Lagerstättes. The authors show the absence of endemism at the family level. The Mesozoic Lagerstättes are linked to the modern Neotropical fauna. The most obvious similarities among the fossil communities are found in the Baltic amber. Faunistic relations with recent communities are more pronounced than with any of the known Lagerstättes. It gives grounds for characterizing the Dominican fauna as the closest to the modern one.