How an insect gets encased in Amber

 

Once upon a time, there were a few bugs. Not anything extraordinary, just a couple of bugs. Some mosquitoes, a couple of flies, a small army of ants, a grasshopper, a wasp, and a spider all hung out in the same tree.

Now this tree was evil-tempered, a real mean pine tree. He HATED bugs, all bugs. If it had more than 4 legs, it was a bug, and he hated it. So, he asked the sun to help him get rid of the bugs that crawled on his branches, and ate his pretty needles.

"Brother Sun," he called, "I need your help!"

"Brother Pine," said the sun, "I give you light to grow with, what more do you need from me?"

"I've got bugs crawling on me, brother, and I need your help to get rid of them." The pine tree showed the Sun his trunk. "See these ants? They are right at this moment chewing up my needles for their nest. I have no way of stopping them! If they keep going, they will eat all of my needles. I will be defenseless against the heat and I will die."

The Sun thought about this. "I see your problem, brother Pine, and I have an idea. You are full of sap, are you not?"

The pine tree agreed. "Yes! It flows every spring, and whenever I have a hole in my bark. It helps me stay at one temperature, and makes sure I do not die from exposure. Why?"

"Well, brother," said the sun, "you could use that sap as a weapon. Whenever a bug crawls over an open area of your bark, you could let your sap roll over him. The bug would be covered by the sap and be unable to crawl on you anymore."

"True. That would get rid of them." The pine tree thought about this. No more bugs crawling on him! This made the pine tree very happy. He shook his needles in anticipation. "The heat from you would help too."

"How?" The sun asked. He was not sure he wanted to destroy bugs. Bugs were very useful to the world.

"Well, the heat from you would harden the sap once it covered the bugs, and they would not be able to get loose. They would be trapped forever in my sap, hardened by your heat. Everyone in the entire world would know that these bugs had the nerve to crawl on me, and would see what I did about it." The pine tree chuckled to himself, then went on.

"My brother trees would also know how to deal with this menace. My brother trees Cedar, Palm, Oak, Cypress, Sequoia, Olive, Chestnut, and Cinnamon, as well as my sisters Camellia, and Magnolia would all be able to defend themselves against bugs! You have made me very happy, Brother Sun, and I thank you." The pine tree laughed again, and leaked sap all over himself.

"I guess you are welcome, Brother Pine, but please do not let me know how it works. It would make me depressed, and I would not be able to warm the world." The sun hid himself from the pine tree's happiness. He didn't actually like bugs anyway, but he didn't want to destroy them either, and he wasn't really interested in allowing the trees to use his heat to trap the poor little things. Bugs deserved to live, too.

The sun purposely did not watch when the mosquitoes got stuck during their big anniversary bash. When the flies and the ants passed the time of day together, and the tree sap rolled over them, the sun was busy fighting off the rain. When the grasshopper got a leg stuck and the wasp tried to free him and got stuck too, the sun was not watching. When the spider cried because she was caught too, the sun covered his ears. When the last fly got stuck while enjoying a succulent berry, the sun rolled his eyes and didn't pay attention.

When the pine tree joyfully told his brothers and sisters how to fight the bug war, the sun pretended to be really interested in the sights over the horizon. So the sun got his wish, and through selective ignorance, he did not know what the trees did to the bugs.

The trees, on the other hand, wanted the sun to get credit for helping them. As a tribute to the sun's assistance, every piece of hardened tree sap carries the yellow color of the sun, whether it has a bug in it or not. The trees have named the hardened tree sap "amber", which in later cultures is called "golden drops of the sun".

This is why bugs get caught in amber, and why trees are so happy about it.

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