This Gecko Trapped In Amber Is 54 Million Years Old, Still Looks Alive
This gecko was trapped in Baltic amber and was discovered in north-western Russia.
Every time we see something surrounding the dinosaurs or creatures from that era -- like the sabretooth or mastodon -- we often think what our lives would be like with them around (if we were to still survive alongside them).
We¡¯ve seen the bones and skeletons of those creatures, sometimes we¡¯ve even been lucky to see fossilised versions of such creatures, keeping most of their body intact. And recently, while browsing through social media I stumbled across the image of a gecko trapped in amber.
Twitter
The image had the caption, ¡°This Gecko has been trapped in amber for 54 million years¡±. The gecko fossil was nothing like I had ever seen, with nearly the whole body intact in the crimson-yellow stone, with its scales clearly visible. Even Elon Musk commented on the post, stating, ¡°That species has stood the test of time.¡±
So I was curious to learn more about when this image was taken and if it, in fact, was 54 million years old. A little digging and I found the research papers highlighting this discovery. The discovery was made in 2004 by researchers Aaron M Bauer, from the Department of Biology in Villanova University, Wolfgang Bohme from Museum Alexander Koenig and Wolfgang Weitschat from the University of Hamburg.
Early Eocene Epoch
The papers revealed that the fossil belonged to the Early Eocene epoch. To the uninitiated, Eocene Epoch or period lasted from 56 to 33.9 million years ago. According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, it is regarded as the second biggest epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era.
According to the researchers, this gecko was trapped in Baltic amber and was discovered in north-western Russia. They claim that this fossil is ¡°the oldest gekkonid lizard to be represented by more than fragmentary skeletal remains. The digits of the specimen are mostly intact and reveal a unique combination of characters not seen in any living form.¡±
Eocene Epoch: American Museum Of Natural History
The discovery also revealed that the scansors (the tiny gecko feet) are similar to those found in current era geckos and they proved that a complex adhesive system was present in the geckos nearly 20 to 30 million years earlier than previously believed.
This basically means that geckos have been on this planet for nearly that long and have survived whatever nature has thrown in front of them to this date. How cool is that?
