Scientists usually get prehistoric insects preserved in amber, perfectly holding their insides for analysis. In a new discovery, it seems that amber can also hold lizards well! A new extinct species of lizard was trapped in Burmese amber, perfectly preserved. The lizard, a member of the Retinosaurus hkamentiensis species, was discovered to still have its scaly skin and skeleton intact. The good quality of the lizard’s remains shocked paleontologist Andrej Čerňanský of Comenius University and his team. “We were able to study not only a skeleton, but even the external appearance (scalation) of the lizard,” Čerňanský told SYFY WIRE. "In fact, we can study the animal in the same way that herpetologists study modern species.”
Read more about the discovery here!
Image credit: Joseph Bevitt/Edward Stanley/Andrej Čerňanský et al