Millions of years in amber, or the oldest snail

Myanmar is known for its mines, in which the remains of ancient creatures mothballed in petrified resin are found with enviable periodicity. These include a snail, whose age, according to scientists, is 99 million years.

In amber you can find many ancient creatures and their remains. But the snail is a big rarity. It is also surprising that, over 99 million years, not only its hard shell, but even soft tissue, was perfectly preserved.

The snail found in Myanmar was dated by the Jurassic period - a time when tyrannosaurs, triceratops and velociraptors roamed the earth. The morphology of the mollusk can be attributed to the family of land snails Cyclophoridae. Today it is the oldest snail ever found on Earth.

As is known, the bodies of snails are extremely short-lived. The soft, gelatinous body decomposes very quickly after death, and the thin and fragile shell rarely comes to us as a fossil. Therefore, snails are rare and very valuable finds for scientists.

“The petrified resin has an amazing quality of preservation, keeping the 3D bodies in such a state as if they were caught in it just yesterday,” explains paleontologist Jeffrey Stilwell of Monash University in Australia.

Most likely the snail was still alive when it fell into a sticky trap. This is evidenced by the elongated shape of the body and the air bubble formed in the head area. This is probably what played its part in the process of conservation - the resin enveloped the stretched body, completely covering it and protecting it from microbes and environmental influences. Now the fossil is in the Dexu Institute of Paleontology collection in Chaozhou, China.