The collection presented in the Museum of Gdansk includes previously unknown species and the world’s largest venomous tooth spider found in Baltic amber.
Danzig Museum / M. Stettin
Three of the world’s rarest and best-preserved specimens of amber fauna from 40 million years ago have been unveiled in the Museum of Gdańsk, including a newly discovered species of Geko and a flying insect.
The three parts are known as “inclusions” because of the fossilized animal life trapped in the translucent amber resin.
The world’s first “complete” Geko measures 2 cm in length and shows a complete body and all four legs, with only the tip of the tail missing.
One shows the first specimen of a full-grown praying mantis in Baltic amber and represents a previously unknown species.
With triangular heads and protruding eyes carried on flexible necks, praying mantises were viewed as supernatural powers by early civilizations.
Since the petrified Geko is an unprecedented species, the director of the Gdańsk Museum has officially named it the Gdańsk Geko.
Another shows the world’s second example of a Geko encased in Baltic amber, but the world’s first so complete, 2 cm long and showing a complete body and all four legs, with only the tip of the tail missing.
The only other of its kind and less complete is in the German Amber Museum in Ribnitz-Damgarten.
The petrified Geko is also of an unprecedented species and was officially referred to as the Danzig Geko on the initiative of the director of the Danzig Museum.
The third inclusion is a spider from the family of the Mygalomorphae spiders At 4 cm, it is the world’s largest picture of this type in Baltic amber in any museum in the world.
The 4 cm tall Mygalomorphae spider is the world’s largest image of its species, which can be found in Baltic amber in every museum in the world.
At the unveiling, Waldemar Ossowski, director of the Gdansk Museum, said: “The most valuable pieces of amber should be found in Gdansk, the world capital of amber.
“With this idea, the new amber museum will have unique exhibits that cannot be praised by any museum in the world.”
The three rarest and best preserved specimens of amber fauna are 40 million years old.
The rarities will now be part of a permanent exhibition in the new multimedia amber museum, which will reopen on July 24th in the Great Mill in Gdansk after renovation and relocation.
The Gdansk Museum bought the pieces for PLN 160,000 from Jonas Damzen, a well-known Lithuanian amber collector, 80 percent of which was financed by the National Institute of Museums and Public Collections.
