Finding well-preserved creatures in amber¹ is a landfall for creation scientists, much like the numerous discoveries of soft dinosaur tissue in fossils.² Another find has been reported by the University of Copenhagen: a fungus gnat has been found entombed in amber.³ Has this in any way supported evolutionary theory? The closest the scientists could get to addressing real evolution of this fly was to state, “The researchers believe that the ancient gnat is a kind of ‘missing link’ that connects its two rare and still living relatives in Japan and the United States.”³

In the past, a potpourri of remarkably preserved animals^4,5 and plants⁶ have been found in amber, and the preserved organisms are virtually identical to those today. Evolutionists called this lack of evolutionary change “stasis.” This is typical of all kinds of creatures that appear in the sedimentary record of the global Flood and are still alive today. Stasis is what creationists would expect since creatures only reproduce “after their kind,” as Genesis clearly states.

Another example of stasis are mites, which are eight-legged arthropods belonging to the arachnids. They also show no evolution.

Did gall mites exist in ancient times in their present forms? If these tiny creatures evolved from some other arthropod, then fossils ought to show a continuum of transformation from that arthropod ancestor to today’s gall mites. But when scientists recently described some of the earliest gall mites from their amber-trapped and finely detailed fossils, they were surprised to find just the opposite—ancient gall mites look like modern ones.⁷

Fresh,⁸ young-looking creatures⁹ entombed in amber seem to be the norm, challenging evolution’s long ages.¹⁰ Flora and fauna entombed in amber do not document evolutionary change. There is only stasis and extinction.

The oldest known amber containing insects is — according to evolutionary dating — 146 million years old. But what is found are animal forms that remain unchanged. Secular biologists are constantly amazed that creatures displayed in such a clear sarcophagus can be identified down to genus or even species. For example, small oak tree flowers have been found dated at “90 million years old,” but they are still oak. The same is true for the oldest feather (100% feather — not a transition from a scale), the oldest mushroom, mosquito, biting black fly, and fig wasp. All that is seen in these organisms is no change (“stasis”) or the possibility of extinction.¹¹

The pattern continues with this recent fungus gnat that was discovered “in a 40-million-year-old piece of amber.”³ The article by the University of Copenhagen stated,

For decades, the piece had been tucked away in the [Natural History Museum of Denmark’s] 70,000-piece amber collection. Recently, it was retrieved from the drawers and subjected to a thorough examination by a team of Polish entomologists. The insect specialists were able to identify the gnat as an extinct species [Robsonomyia henningseni] from a rare genus of predatory gnats. Today, living species of the genus are only found in Hokkaido, Japan and California.³

But R. henningseni is still a gnat of the order Diptera.

There are figures of another species of Robsonomyia, R. baltica, in amber that show the gnat’s amazing details, right down to wing venation.¹² Such detail indicates that the amber formed rapidly to preserve the fly almost immediately. ICR’s Brian Thomas stated,

Indeed, the speed with which resin hardens, according to well-characterized chemical polymerization reactions, is why it has been used for centuries as furniture varnish. Amber hardens rapidly in the wild. In the form of sandarac, for example, it is used as incense in Arabia and as medicine by Africans. The same chemicals that comprise the majority of naturally occurring ambers can produce amber in laboratories as well. There is every scientific reason to consider ambers as having formed rapidly.¹³

Pelczynska et al. indeed discovered a rare genus of Robsonomyia, but it is still a gnat, and a well-preserved one at that. It was embedded in amber, not “40-million-years” ago, but during the Flood about 4,500 years ago.

References

1. Clarey, T. New Amber Discoveries Down Under. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org April 17, 2020.
2. Thomas, B. and S. Taylor. 2019. Proteomes of the Past: The Pursuit of Proteins in Paleontology. Expert Review of Proteomics. 16 (11-12): 881-895.
3. Fungus Gnat Entombed in a 40-Million-Year-Old Piece of Amber Is a Rare Gem. University of Copenhagen. Posted on phys.org August 30, 2024. Emphasis added.
4. Thomas, B. Scan of Amber-Trapped Spider Shows Recent Origin. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org May 27, 2011.
5. Thomas, B. Fossilized Gecko Fits Creation Model. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 8, 2008.
6. Sadowski, E and C. Hofmann. 2023. The Largest Amber-Preserved Flower Revisited. Nature. 13, article 17.
7. Thomas, B. Why Do Creatures in Ancient Amber Look So Modern? Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 7, 2012.
8. Thomas, B. Amber-Encased Blood Cells Look Fresh. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org April 17, 2017.
9. Thomas, B. Cache of Amber in India Looks Young. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org November 5, 2010.
10. Thomas, B. Ancient Amber Discovery Contradicts Geologic Timescale. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org October 19, 2009.
11. Sherwin, F. 2006. Amber: A Window to the Recent Past. Acts &Facts. 35 (7).
12. Pelczynska, A. et al. Eocene Amber Provides the First Fossil Record and Bridges Distributional Gap in the Rare Genus Robsonomyia (Diptera: Keroplatidae). Nature. 14, article 9252.
13. Thomas, B. Fantastic Australian Amber Supports Young World. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org July 7, 2010.

* Dr. Sherwin is a news writer at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an honorary doctorate of science from Pensacola Christian College.