Teredolites clavatus borings in fossil resins and their significance — new data from Cretaceous Lebanese amber

This study reports the Teredolites clavatus borings within the Early Cretaceous Lebanese amber from the Hammana-Mdeirij outcrop, offering new insights into the taphonomy of a fossil resin. These findings represent one of the oldest known examples of this ichnospecies in fossil resins and are similar in age to borings known from the Jordanian amber. The club-shaped borings produced by marine wood-boring bivalves (most probably piddocks) are interpreted as domichnia belonging to the Teredolites ichnofacies. Four amber pebbles containing well-preserved borings were examined, one of which retains a distinct bioglyph on its interior surface. The impact of interpretation fossil resins as a xylic or lithic substrate is presented, in ichnotaxonomical and paleoenvironmental contexts. The studied specimens support a taphonomic model in which bored amber fragments were reworked and deposited, together with xylite material, during a regressive phase along the Tethyan shoreline. The absence of Apectoichnus and other woodground borings corroborates this interpretation. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using trace fossils in amber for reconstructing depositional environments and enhances the ichnological and paleoecological framework of Lebanese amber-bearing sequences with new data.