THIS GECKO HAS BEEN TRAPPED IN AMBER FOR 100 MILLION YEARS

Researchers at the University of Oregon state and the Natural History Museum in London confirmed that they had found the oldest known gecko fossil with life-like pieces after 100 million years of the amber-buried skeleton.

The tiny foot of this ancient lizard also displays the tiny “lamellae” or sticky headdress hairs, that to this day give modern geckos their unusual ability to cling to surfaces or run across a ceiling. Research programs around the world have tried to mimic this bizarre adhesive capability, with limited success.

This gecko’s running days are over, however, as only the foot, toes, and part of a tail are left in the stone. The rest might have become lunch for a small dinosaur or another predator during an ancient fight in the tropical forests of Myanmar during the Lower Cretaceous Period, from 97 million to 110 million years ago. Read the free article.