Scientists have discovered a 23-million-year-old lizard has been found in Chiapas, Mexico, Efe reported.
The specimen, 1.8 inches in length, was "a complete and articulated animal that also preserves remains of soft tissue and skin, " Francisco Riquelme of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Physics Institute, told Efe.
The lizard is on display at the Amber Museum in San Cristobal de las Casas. Initial results showed the lizard to belong to the Anolis genus, which contains almost 400 species, as part of a new species.
Some Anolis species are known for adaptive characteristics, like changing colors depending on surroundings. The genus lends itself to the study of "evolutionary diversification" because of the several hundred species known to exist. According to the Encyclopedia of Life, the Anolis genus was the first ever to be sequenced.
Gerardo Carbot, director of Chiapas's Paleontology Museum, said the scientists dated the amber deposit to determine the age of the lizard. Carbot said the amber that had entombed the lizard was at least 23 million years old. Amber is known to fossilize remnants of ancient plants and animals, but finding an entire lizard's vertebrae intact was a rare find.
Science News reported a year ago that the oldest animals ever found in amber were mites aged 230 million years old. Those amber deposits were only found after scientists had previously studied more than 70,000 specimens.
"Dinosaurs have come and gone, but mites have hardly changed," David Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City said. "Their body form is quite similar to what we see in gall mites today."
This particular lizard was discovered a number of months ago, reported the French Tribune, but scientists were just now able to date the specimen inside.
