5 Strange Prehistoric Creatures Found Trapped In Amber

[@RedTail1-1]

I was wondering why the gecko's eyes were open. I forgot that they don't have eyelids and lick their eyeballs to clean them lol

[@thatonepossum5766]

Not all though! Some terrestrial geckos have moveable eyelids. Squinting leopard geckos are truly adorable.

[@extragoogleaccount6061]

That little guy looks like he got into some lsd

[@feliche2292]

They literally can’t close their eyes?

[@Gothlite-i1l]

The eyes are often open in death which is why morticians sew the eyelids shut in humans.

[@thatonepossum5766]

@@feliche2292 yup, they have no eyelids and so can’t close their eyes. They have a clear scale over each eye, called an eye cap, that protects their eyes. :)

[@ambds1975]

I needed to hear the phrase 'fluffy little dinosaur,' thank you.

[@fastinradfordable]

That’s what she said.

[@Karthik-pn2yj]

​@@fastinradfordable what??

[@heathergerbyshak4078]

I have a parrot so I understand fluffy little dinosaurs.

[@TheRonaldbaxter]

According to creationists, dinos didn’t have feathers, there is no evidence! 🪶 The lord created dinosaurs, the lord created birds. There must be a mistake here. 🤡

[@ecurewitz]

Always makes my day better

[@DrakoDragonis]

Found myself looking up 'Can I have my body encased in resin when I die?'. Ha.

[@hmsbelfast2019]

I’m just jumping in a peak bog myself

[@patreekotime4578]

It worked for the ancient Egyptians!

[@sliceofham3737]

If it helps I think we are probably FIRMLY cemented in the fossil record already with our incredibly numerous burial sites.

[@sneeringimperialist6667]

Polyester resin...

[@OtakuUnitedStudio]

​@@sliceofham3737 Also the often legally required methods by which the bodies of the deceased are required to be preserved, meaning most modern cemeteries likely have mummified remains that are still recognizable to at least some degree. I know of at least one case where someone who died in the 1970s was exhumed in the 2000s and was well preserved enough that they reopened a cold case based on the examination.

[@melaniesmith1313]

I don't know why, but the gecko made me feel so sad. Intellectually, I am glad we have the specimen.

[@godbyone]

That’s my gecko. He died from natural cause s. I encased him to V keep him. Handy

[@BlanBonco]

Gecko life is probably pretty fun

[@primesspct2]

@@BlanBonco walking right a glass condo, seeing how the rich live. Imagine if we had feet the interacted on a molecular level! That always amazed me. Van der Waals forces

[@BlanBonco]

@@primesspct2 yup dont need to be rich if the forest is your playground. With tech now we will all be trapped with narcisistic haters 24/7

[@shruggzdastr8-facedclown]

He was probably in the middle of trying to sign a new insurance customer when the tree resin overcame him; so, Jake from State Farm stole that business from him 😏

[@Zsokorad]

Poor flea got amberized right after licking its butt and has to suffer the humilation forever.

[@gattycroc8073]

god I hate it when war limits new discoveries.

[@acidrock9935]

I hate war

[@fastinradfordable]

@@acidrock9935as any wise man will

[@ThouSwell-zx3fd]

Bombing in WW2 destroyed the best Spinosaurus skeleton we ever had 😡

[@Jakmak1480]

Sarcasm?

[@gattycroc8073]

@@ThouSwell-zx3fd I know right.

[@King_K_Rool_]

Who's Amber mate?

[@JeffrotheDude]

amber? i barely know 'er

[@scottthesmartape9151]

I’m gonna amb you

[@jamesoshea580]

Never heard of her.

[@xenodragomorph]

Oh haha I get it

[@KateLyons-f4k]

Tree resin

[@NoNo-bd8id]

I mean it's incredible, but also.. poor little guys. Especially the baby bird

[@thekaxmax]

May have saved it from being eaten...

[@karlkarlos3545]

You may also check out the frozen ice age baby cats.

[@FLPhotoCatcher]

OK, the bird, which has flight feathers, is a full-on bird. And it's 99 million years old. So I say that birds are not dinos, but... birds. If they did descend from dinos, it was so far back, that they are a different animal.

[@1ForTheShieldz]

Rip flea butt

[@andrestein6022]

​@FLPhotoCatcher it literally says not flight fathers

[@gregrowell8688]

I was stationed in the Philippines. There were geckos every where. The gecko still looks like the specimens shown here in the amber.

[@halfshearedsheep]

They call them butiki. I really loved chasing them as a kid

[@satkinson5505]

@gregrowell8688 Yep. They haven't changed in 95 million years. It kinda puts a crimp in the whole evolution thing,but not if you just ignore it. That Amber really held up well for 95 million years.

[@pattyprolapse]

@satkinson5505 You don't know anything about evolution and couldn't offer a satisfying replacement theory if you tried, but you know that everything scientists and educators say is a lie. Based on what, vibes? This is an inferiority complex. You don't like to feel stupid so you pretend that you know more than everyone else in the room, and it's pathetic.

[@zaloon148]

​@@satkinson5505it doesn't put a crimp in anything lmao. They haven't evolved significantly because their environment and lives don't demand it

[@Sigmaboy787-d2n]

I sometimes call them tuko and they are terrifying to hear especially they're weird sounds

[@oakdew]

Thank you for touching on the controversy regarding specimens from Myanmar. This discussion of the human cost of these samples is critical.

[@pedrohpires6608]

In Star Trek Voyager in one episode the doctor destroy the data of a cure because it's very Myanmar conflict, BUT in that case they violate (opinion) the VOW to cure the patients that they are responsible. And do not tel my that they can have other sources…

[@quadpop4643]

This is silly the sale of a few limited specimens hasn't put any major funding in anyone's pocket and if a mine worker can smuggle out a piece of amber and sell it to feed there family more power to them.

[@leonmat26]

@@quadpop4643 Institutions gotta have some standards man. Any type of exceptions can and will be taken advantage of.

[@comfortablynumb9342]

​@@quadpop4643it's not silly. We don't learn nearly as much when we see such a specimen out of the location it was found. It's important to record the information from around the sample in situ before it's moved to study. I get it, you only think about money. That attitude is why the world is dying.

[@amandae5165]

Tommie huh 😁

[@SleezyRider883]

the fact dinosaurs had feathers is still soooo mindblowing to me man. Like i just cant imagine them being full of feathers after spending 20 years thinking of them as gigantic lizards lmfao

[@outerrealm]

Plus the small ones are cute and fluffy. A dinosaur named “fluffy”.

[@Odinsday]

Birds are descendants of dinosaurs and they retained feathers all these tens of millions of years later which is mindblowing. Even stranger, birds are still considered reptiles despite not sharing most reptilian traits we associate salamanders or crocodiles with.

[@Evan8787]

Most dinosaurs didn't have feathers and many modern depictions are still speculative. Most still looked like big lizards.

[@p.bckman2997]

@@Evan8787 , quite. Some of the smaller carnivorous had "fluff", and a few selected families had full on feathers. Larger ones would have overheated with feathers though. It's quite likely _Tyrannosaurus_ hatchlings were fluffy, but we have enough skin imprints from adults to know they had regular reptile skin.

[@_--Reaper--_]

@@Evan8787 How do u know, did you see them?

[@JOlivier2011]

Update to my last wishes: have body entirely encased in resin and then buried 100+ feet deep somewhere geologically stable. Still need to work out the pose I want to be put in, but it needs to be maximally confusing

[@smokey281]

curved like the raptor in jurrasic park ofcourse

[@xanderuhlmann3038]

Family guy death pose

[@Who_We_Are_podcast]

Superman pose.

[@-cosmicrogue-]

Mid karate chop

[@Smashingblouse]

Ballet pirouette

[@kosmas173]

Amber discoveries are always so fascinating!!!

[@protocetid]

We got a very well preserved chick from a completely extinct group of birds that had dinosaur snouts, and we just happened to get a species that doesn't have the dinosaur snout ughh. And there's a gecko and flea that are super similar to modern examples, man out of all the extraordinary lost creatures that we could have gotten to see almost perfectly preserved, we got the most boring ones. Imagine if we had a whole baby dinosaur encased in amber, oh well at least we got a tail and a kind of interesting reptile.

[@harbingerwolf1179]

I think the scientific value of getting those amber specimens before they end up as jewelry is far more important than anything else.

[@nox5555]

Rooms, you make rooms out of Amber...

[@xemiii]

Human lives are more valuable than any insight we could get from those fossils, and this js coming from someone that loves fossils and natural history

[@noblesavage300]

​@@xemiiiquite frankly, humans tend to do whatever they believe is necessary to survive. Part of survival at this point in time is the exchange of currency. If the money stops coming from the scientific community, it will come from other sources. It may be the jewelry trade, the tragic reality of human trafficking, the conquest of warlords over one another, etc. I'd rather not miss out on new discoveries, and every armed conflict undoubtedly stands to destroy forever more undiscovered knowledge about Earth's prehistory. I wonder if it would be feasible to provide these people with funding and equipment to make their work safer as well as profitable. We may not encourage the exploitation of the people by withholding money, but I can't in good faith say we are being at all proactive either.

[@patreekotime4578]

If it was happening in your backyard, I bet you wouldn't care so much about the fossils.

[@FoxerBoxerNaaniwa]

Scientists have to purchase the amber to study it. That creates an economic incentive to continue the horrific conditions faced by amber miners. Scientific discovery isn’t worth perpetuating suffering.

[@jurassiczfossils9075]

I have always wondered, what would happen to the specimens if you opener the amber?

[@Cranberrie123]

Mostly, you wreck the specimen. The preserved specimens are quite fragile and the stress of removing it will likely destroy much of it. It also removes it from the context it was found in, which could erase a lot of what can be learned from it.

[@E_Legal_Alien]

Jurassic Park

[@carlosandleon]

they’re already mush and carbon. Most of what you see are the imprints on the sap. The biological material is already broken down and liquified

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

You can see the broken fingers on the gecko. It still tapers off

[@shinobione2575]

that doesn’t make sense

[@arringar]

This is all deeply fascinating and I appreciate the work put into this video. But I have to comment on the controversy over Myanmar amber specimens…. I can say (and prove) with 100% certainty that the specimens are still being sold, but they are instead being sold to private collectors through channels like Catawiki and eBay. This is another fine example of scientists failing at science because they’re too busy getting caught up in matters that have nothing to do with science. The money is still flowing into Myanmar for the fossils and the specimens are permanently entering the private sector where they will never be studied. This seems akin to cutting off your nose to spite your own face.

I agree, however some 95% of fossils in museum collections and research facilities around the world have not been studied nor are available for public viewing, many still incased in the same plaster used to protect them during transport at the time of discovery decades, even over a century ago.

[@spracketskooch]

Indeed, they've been caught up in virtue signaling. There's just no two ways about it. I guess they'd better start working with private collectors instead of ostracizing them like some sort of criminals. Also, I'd be willing to bet that the private collectors are offering better prices, so the so called scientists might have just screwed themselves permanently.

[@migarsormrapophis2755]

The SVP is operated by a bunch of morons - ever since 2020 the yearly conference has been going downhill, and they've started adding a bunch of useless and counter-productive committees. Trying to limit what research they'll allow to be presented will only hasten their decline.

[@vismaykedilaya1318]

hypothetically, what if we just took a few individuals from a ton of species, and stage them to keep their fossils preserved for as long as possible? for example, burying a lion or an elephant so that their remains get fossilized, or by burying a few specimens of smaller creatures (or even humans) in amber to ensure that whatever civilization succeeds us knows what we were like. would this work?

[@AstrixCloud]

A Human and Lion would properly be too big to preserve in tree resin, also takes many thousands of years to age and harden to become Amber like we see it today. The tree sap would probably crack after a few years/decades after encasing the bodies due to our size. But.. yah never know and might fluke the one perfect one to preserve. But then again, we would probably get tossed off like what we do with many of our own human discoveries we find. Humans in the next centuries might not even need a body to know what we were like. AI I'm sure will still be around in a totally different way and is basically a massive memory card that has basically EVERYTHING on its database already.

[@zaxmaxlax]

smithsonian institution

[@squgieman]

or ya know, we dont wipe ourselves out, we're about as survivable as cockroaches and spread as quickly too, so we'll be fine :)

[@genericgamergirl]

​@@squgieman Hey it could also be our future generations like 10000 years from now when we're no longer around. I doubt every single living species we have right now would make it that far without some sort of evolution afterall.

[@swagmundfreud666]

Why could we not just preserve the knowledge in amber? Visually of course, as writing would not be interpretable without knowing the Language.

[@edwhatshisname3562]

I think the longer snout on that lizard could have also been used to help it get into hard to reach spaces.

[@walkerbeswick8911]

These are insane the amount or detail to them is astonishing it’s actually hard to believe that we have the specimens I love to hear know and learn about stuff like this keep up the great work!!!!!!

[@l0lan00b3]

5:52 in the upper left part of the tail it looks like there’s a bug carapace or thorax or whatever in there too.

[@logansorenssen]

Looked like a whole ant to me.

[@gos1764]

Imagine if existed a lake of amber like tar pits

[@RealBelisariusCawl]

I’m just gonna say it. If they ever bring dinosaurs back to life (which they won’t but I can dream) then I want one of those little fluffy guys as a pet. I know it could probably mess me up. I don’t care. I want one.

[@johntoldme]

t They have regressed chicken DNA to the point where they can make chicks in the egg develope teeth instead of beaks. Apparently DNA has versioning memory built in, it's just a matter of how far back you can go.

[@Animesther]

​@@johntoldmeWell sadly not really, they've just removed their dna that was responsible for creating the beak, so they just created a baby chick that couldn't even breathe. As I've heard.

[@TheRonaldbaxter]

Watch Clint’s Reptiles channel. He will walk you through the ups and downs of owning a T rex as a pet! 🦖

[@RealBelisariusCawl]

@ I’m a huge fan of Clint. Not thinking megatheropod for a pet, but microtheropod. This little dino was probably rat-sized.

[@djcoolbeat6934]

Jurassic Park? 🦖

[@LightBlueVans]

perfect timing! i’ve got a half hour wait i just sat down for (:

[@WaterShowsProd]

Thank you for talking about the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. Currently Kachin State is mostly under the control of resistance forces, by areas, though the area where the amber mines is located and many of the towns and cities are still under control of the Tatmadaw military junta, who will be the ones profiting from mining activity. Kachin is the largest resource of rare earth in the world, so naturally its a territory the junta does not want to give up easily. Just a small note: Kachin is pronounced with the A as a schwa and the stress is on the second syllable.

[@nerolzvanity]

Cant fathom the millions of animals that were wiped under the rug never to be discovered because of how small they are. Plants, insects, rodents, and tiny lizards :(

[@aquilschutte]

I thought the same thing, we find one random gecko and its instantly a completely new species

[@mariahroberson6283]

Sweet video. I love learning things about this, I’m glad you make these videos. I’d love to be able to place your voice, What side of England are you on?

[@jangleleg117]

1:20 I bet the geckos fingers were like this when it was alive. I've seen some people with pet geckos losing their fingers all the time just from their shed getting stuck and constricting the blood flow to the digits. I see some wild ones here in South Africa the same way but it could be any battle scar on a wild one, maybe it barely escaped a crow or battled another gecko.

[@EUnsal]

Ur Afrikaqns

[@EUnsal]

Yo praat afrikkans?

[@gnosticjesus2115]

Geckos lose fingers during shedding when the humidity in their enclosure isn't high enough... this doesn't tend to happen in wild geckos

[@JohnDillon-zh7js]

Good eye

[@RarityAntoinette]

The dinosaur one found in Myanmar is soo amazing and is reasonable cuz Myanmar has a lot of untouched places

[@ShnarkNarc4]

15:30 I feel like not buying the amber is dumb. Like I get that they don't like the fact that it's forced labor in that area (sometimes) but why does it matter how the fossil is obtained? As long as it's real it should be studied. Not just thrown away or kept in personal hands because you feel like "aw child labor sad, me no buy this fossil for studying"

[@calartian85]

That technician from Jurassic Park was working overtime.

[@StryKhymorodnyk]

Funny enough, Yantarogecko Balticus literally means it was found on the shores of Baltic Sea, so it was not ruzzia. At all. So-called, Kaliningrad is factually annexed (taken illegaly by soviet empire). And more, countries around Baltic Sea are know for their amber deposits.

[@nejmizrendom]

What do you mean illegaly They won the war that they were the defender in

[@rursus8354]

A more precise location would have been justified, since Rvzzia in general is a little bit vague.

[@pfftnuffinpersonalkid1541]

?Kaliningrad is absolutely Russia per the Potsdam Agreement and further ratified in the 1990s as Russian territory.

[@davidwilliambarker]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[@seanhewitt603]

Jeez louise! Just how much sap did the ancient trees produce?!?, I mean...

[@kj_H65f]

they still do today. you should see the doug fir i had to take down due to beetle damage. It had kilograms of goo seeping out of it.

[@maryannjordan8143]

For some reason ancient trees produced way more than modern ones.

[@katrinakollmann5265]

This still happens ♡

[@leonmat26]

I mean, Canada has maple syrup reserve in the millions of pounds. That's all tasty tree sap.

[@patreekotime4578]

Maple syrup, turpentine, rubber, gum arabic, frankenscence.... there are many many products and industrial base materials extracted from tree resin even today.

[@ianrobson9601]

Totally amazing discoveries, such a great video. Thanks for the upload

[@RichardSilvius]

Am I crazy or is that an insect preserved along with the feathers at 4:33? Looks almost like it could be a flea.

[@phantom0456]

He says that there were ants trapped in the resin not long after the timestamp you referenced.

[@elizabethvandeventer5487]

You are not crazy!!!😂😂😂

[@mayowhishes]

Yes I was about to comment about that FLEA !!!

[@mayowhishes]

​@@phantom0456 he only mentions the ants but there's definitely a flea in the feathers !! zoom in on that flea ! he talks about a different flea after, a younger flea... what disease could the dino flea have ??

[@xobkizum]

So if humans were to travel back in time, we'd have to not only worry about deadly animals but also deadly bacteria. 😱

[@remixgameyt1172]

Doubt it, the pathogens likely wouldn't have a way to breach the human immune system largely due to that humans didn't exist at the time, making it impossible for a virus to create patterns to breach human immune systems

[@jaydub2546]

Well yeah. Thats the main reason humans can’t bring back extinct animals that can survive in the wild, they will also need to create the bacteria too. It’s not a simple as creating the animal.

[@rizkyperdana3066]

The "g" sound in "naga" is not pronounced "j" like in "George", but with a guttural G like in "draGon".

Depends on the allophonic variations of one's particular region.

[@rizkyperdana3066]

Nah. Naga is pronounced the same in all regions where it's used historically and culturally. That's why Nagini of Harry Potter fame is NaGini, not NaJini.

@@rizkyperdana3066 How do you personally pronounce Appalachian or Boise? Even among the native populace you will hear a variant pronunciation within that particular region. In astronomy, you will hear a variant of the planet Uranus among the most prominent scientists of the field. The same is true in metallurgy for the element aluminum. Regional and cultural phonetics is a crucial subdiscipline of linguistics and therefore cannot be artificially evolved in order to unify grammar. In short, the production of Naga is dependent on the speaker. It's only coincidence that the director of Harry Potter used similar pronunciations as yourself, perhaps by being influenced by the same dialect.

[@rizkyperdana3066]

A simple search will show that the pronunciation of the word Naga uses a guttural G rather than J in all the different regional languages and dialects (where the word is commonly encountered) of Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, India, the Phillippines, etc. There are even pronunciation guides for American and British English, and they also uses the guttural G. So yes, even though you are right about different populace/dialects might pronounce a word variedly, especially where the language has a lot of silent letters, compound consonants and blending sounds, in this case it is a singular mistake stemming from the narrator's (or maybe the producer's) going with their own pronunciation of Naga, instead of researching for a bit and finding out the correct pronunciation.

@@rizkyperdana3066 Naga is a common word we use here in the middle Appalachians to identify certain water snakes. And if you ever came here and pronounced it with a g rather than a J, you would likely be corrected along with several unfavorable comments regarding your accent. The internet reaches all points of the world and provides a means for people to communicate with each other. Variants are normal and should be expected and respected. I suppose that we could converse in Latin in order to eliminate the variables in dialect, however I do not see any reason to do so since we understand the words the narrator was conveying.

[@Spacecookie-]

It must be really difficult to resist buying amber with remnants trapped inside, they are on ebay and everything for about £2,000 to £7,000 (about $9,000 USD) for one little one with half a lizard, or some sort of bird remnant. I know I'd be sorely tempted if I ever had the money.

[@Latenivenatrix_Mcmasterae]

Myanmar feels incredibly sad for all ends, I really want to see more amber specimens and don’t want amber specimens lost to science but I see the ethical dilemma that counters said goal and just don’t know what can be done

[@HEYTWIDDLELEEDEE-c6p]

Really great Ben. So many discoveries in one piece, and another.

[@OlessanYT]

I thought about the Myanmar situation through the entire video even before the segment where it comes up. Banning purchases and studies on purchases on amber from the region will result in potentially priceless unique specimens being lost, but the ethics of it is SO dubious because of the conditions of the source mines. However - what's just as important to consider is that the people of Kachin need to find income for their own survival and wellbeing. They WILL mine and sell the amber, and WILL do it in dangerous conditions, no matter what. The difference is if people are buying it for vanity jewellery reasons, or for preservation of the fossils. The conflict will continue to put pressure and danger on the civilians in the impacted areas and they'll continue to have their hands forced, including mining the amber. I'm not sure it's really within the purview of fossil acquisition to go making the decision to help or not in a humanitarian crisis.

[@spracketskooch]

Of course it's not within their purview. They think good intentions are enough.

[@mrr5835]

It's amazing to me how little some things have changed that didn't need to.

[@Rooftopaccessorizer]

i decided to look up amber specimens online and im surprised at how common and inexpensive some amber specimens are. other fossils too! you can get trilobytes and ammonites very cheaply, although i wonder how many are fake

[@aquilschutte]

Well, there are a LOT of those -ites, they are also very small so not so hard to fossilize

[@isaaco5679]

I was always amused that in that jurasic park scene they use what is probably the rustiest needle ever!

[@WaterShowsProd]

It was meant to look like the cheesy B-roll that's often used in those types of films, with a grinning model posing as a scientist. Maybe a bit of an inside industry joke, but definitely amusing and I'm sure it was intended to be.

[@L_Train]

I don't often give likes to videos. They really have to earn it. This video definitely earned a like. Amazing information and presentation!

[@moss1245]

Super cool video dude!

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

Just a small correction: the correct plural is enantiornitheans. This has been pointed out by Albert Chen and other bird specialists

[@spracketskooch]

The point of language is to communicate ideas. If you understood what he meant, then there's no problem. Also, words have usages, not meanings. How a word is used defines it. For example, so many people now use the word "adaption" instead of "adaptation", that both are correct. It would also help if scientists didn't deliberately make their language use as arcane as possible. I swear that it seems like half of any profession is lingo.

[@sanpedro1337]

Best thing iv seen this Christmas ! :)

[@jarnMod]

I live and work in SEA and if you wait for conflict in Myanmar to die down before mining it, you will never mine any of it. The young workers who don't mine, are sold and probably become sex slave or something. Thanks goodness westerners save them from being forced to dig in a mine to become a mine to be dug instead. Also, soon enough, and probably already, those ambers are sold to secondary markets. Next thing you'll find is amber from places link Bangladesh, Thailand, Lao and the like. Just like the US banning Chinese goods, they find their way around it.

[@spracketskooch]

Yes indeed. These naive morons think that the entire world does and should function like the suburban west. They don't even consider that the mines might be the best of four terrible options. They have no concept of making do with what you have. They don't understand that opportunities and social and economic mobility do not exist in some places. The lack of gratitude is also infuriating. So many of my countrymen don't have a drop of gratitude in their bodies. They're not thankful at all that they don't have to be miners. They take peace and prosperity for granted, and spit in the face of the people who provided these things for them. And the arrogance, oh the arrogance with which they speak! Sorry for the rant. This kind of thing just really upsets me.

[@sheeeenogoji7603]

Even if scientific institutions don't buy the amber, billionaires and the fashion industry will anyways for possibly more money

[@francessimmonds5784]

Fascinating that toothed birds died out but beaked birds survived. Beaks must have had an evolutionary advantage after the asteroid hit.

[@comfortablynumb9342]

I can look at a modern bird, say an ostrich for example, and a picture of a tyrannosaurus, and see how they went from one to the other over time. They're both bipedal and have sort of similar shapes other than birds not having long tails. It's harder to look at stegosaurus or brontosaurus and birds and see the connection. For me at least. But birds have light bones, which would make sense for a creature with a very long neck like brontosaurus had. It's sad that Myanmar is such a disaster. Tragic. The amber is sad too because its context is lost, it's not possible to see the layers they come from.

[@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke]

You are comparing the similarities between birds and their close cousins (other Therapod dinosaurs), with the similarities between birds and more distant cousins (non-Therapod dinosaurs). The connection _should_ be harder to see, they should be more distantly related, more different.

[@SevericK_BooM]

First off: all of these paleontologists are complete drama queens. For context, I work in a geology department… so I know. Secondly: that amber is getting mined anyways whether we study it or not, so sure. Investigate it or not, that’s not going to change the starting jobless people from doing their job.

[@hughoxford8735]

We need to preserve more prehistoric animals in amber

[@heathergerbyshak4078]

You get working on that, Buddy…

[@mikemikemike4496]

Aight bet starting with you

[@Flammper]

Why didn't we think of this before!

[@thesacredmom2784]

That gecko is cool! All the info is cool!

[@Ottobon]

8:45 ok i pull up

[@christopherapel1712]

Not that I am in favor of funding wars or terrorism , But a piece of amber made into a piece of jewelry , presumably would be sold too , If one sale is guilty of funding illicit causes , so is the other . Is preserving the information worth the societal cost ? Losing the scientific information also is a cost . And could information , possibly degraded , be retrieved from the jewelry ?

[@ryanbonner25]

it doesnt get more fascinating than this type of upload

[@JabbarMuhammad-e4l]

Fossilized Amber is fascinating to look at

[@valkyrie1066]

My absolutely favorite gem. The pieces of moss, wood, bubbles of water, remains of animals, it makes it more fascinating. That gecko is WONDERFUL! I'm sure we've killed off hundreds of species over the eons. Nice to get a glimpse of one, especially so very clearly! Dinosaur feathers? I have a 15 lb rooster. I can see where that went. He's too fat to fly, too. If they were 150 lbs, we'd have no chance against them.

[@KeithPrince-cp3me]

The Roman writer Tacitus in his Germania (98CE) thought Amber was hardened tree resin and referred to winged and creeping things found trapped in it, though he had no way of knowing how old it was. The tail proves that some dinosaurs had feathers, which might be expected of those with small mass compared with large surface area. Our word electricity comes from the Greek for amber as it readily supports static electricity.

[@gorgorletyran7424]

Strange to see that not much have changed since those long forgotten times. Maybe one day an animal no one has ever thought about will be found perfectly conserved. That would be nice.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

There's Sialomorpha, which is unlike any other animal known

[@gorgorletyran7424]

@Carlos-bz5oo It's _exactly_ like a tardigrade. What would be interesting is an animal that is unlike any we know about. Not just a "prehistoric" version of one.

[@will-i-am-not]

The gheko was bot over whelmed by the resin because of its size, even small ghekos can move incredibly fast, and they can also jump from heights

[@ariesdk5487]

We can mine cobalt , but no amber huh...

[@patreekotime4578]

We shouldnt be doing that either. I fully support electric cars, but we have plenty of battery technology now that does not require cobalt.

[@TheOuroboros84]

Johnny Depp was also trapped inside Amber, but I guess he doesn't make the list cos he's not exactly prehistoric

[@spracketskooch]

He wriggled his way out eventually though.

[@christopher9270]

Enormously interesting and entertaining!

[@isaacgarcia117]

It didn't evolve, it simply adapted

[@bonniemob65]

Adaptation I'd an evolutionary process. If it adapted, it evolved.

[@isaacgarcia117]

@bonniemob65 there's a difference between the words and context matters as well In this context, it isn't evolution

[@deetvleet]

@@isaacgarcia117 why are you seriously trying to argue against evolution in 2024. why are you even watching videos like this if you think they're lying to you

[@tarfielarchelone2674]

​@isaacgarcia117 the difference here is that your worldview requires you to play dumb.

[@isaacgarcia117]

@@deetvleet I didn't, I stopped watching after the 2nd time he used the word evolution Also, you can still see someone's content if it goes against what you believe in, it doesn't really matter much

[@TriXJester]

So, can anyone explain to me why amber fossils seem to be more prevelant in Myanmar? Like, is just one a few places people look for them or was there a certain type of tree that was more common there that produced more sap than other trees?

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

Its likely just a quirk of the fossil reccord. We have other amber localities like the Baltic and Caribbean, they just don't as interesting fossils

[@homesteadlegion4419]

Myanmar just has a lot of untouched amber in the soil, most other areas are now under water or have been picked clean over the last thousands of years. The baltic is a good example, finding ambers the size of walnuts on beaches used to be a common thing during roman times but today you are lucky if you find one the size of a grape.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Excellent video, Merry Xmas and Happy 2025. x

[@196cupcake]

Kind of sounds like we should be preserving every possible current animal in tree sap.

[@seasquawker]

Alive!!!

[@shinobione2575]

no it doesn’t

[@shinobione2575]

why would we even need to do that?

[@196cupcake]

@@shinobione2575 guarantee preservation of animals

[@Joe-Przybranowski]

The human race as a whole NEEDS those fossils from Myanmar- The political situation ithere is temporary and irrelevant.

[@jackabug2475]

Thanks for your excellent work on the video as a whole, but also particularly in presenting the bare-bones basics of the sticky situation in Myanmar as it relates to the paleontological angle.

[@Spamkromite]

You know that the last thing a gecko does when slathered in amber is to close their eyes and suffocate in peace...

[@gomahklawm4446]

They don't have eyelids.....

[@davidc5191]

Let's put these Myanmar amber finds in context: 100 years from now everyone living in Myanmar today will have died, but these fossil finds will still have made a significant contribution to our understanding of the natural world. Put another way, "ars longa vita brevis."

[@FoxerBoxerNaaniwa]

You are the reason ethics classes should be absolutely mandatory for every student for every year no matter the degree.

[@FoxerBoxerNaaniwa]

Also you should be forced to mine amber in Myanmar for thirty years to gain ‘context’.

[@larrychilders6599]

No we should destroy the amber finds from Myanmar and study the ones still there since you can learn WAY more when items are still where they were originally

[@cyfangz9238]

@@FoxerBoxerNaaniwa You complain about ethics but can't claim he is wrong.

[@spracketskooch]

@@FoxerBoxerNaaniwa What exactly is ethical about removing a revenue stream from people that need it? Listen to people who actually live in the area. If these kids aren't working in the mines, they're often sold off as sex slaves. Good job "saving" them from the mines... Believe it or not, the rest of the world is not western suburbs. Also, good intentions are not enough. You can't make things worse, and then take no responsibility because you were trying to do the right thing.

[@anitapeura3517]

So evocative of another world, in the flesh as opposed to 2d pictures. Thank you!

[@patreekotime4578]

The number of commenters here who have absolutely zero sympathy for the plight of the people of Myanmar is shocking and revolting. Even science-tube is a cesspool. Sigh.

[@m.streicher8286]

The purchase of amber specimens from war-torn areas is a complicated issue. However the military coup in Myanmar (Burma to most anti Junta forces) is not complicated. The overthrow of a civilian government by a military Junta is not justifiable or complicated. It is always wrong.

[@gregbors8364]

Fun fact: they revived the gecko, and the first thing it did was sell the researchers car insurance

[@catherinegrimes2308]

Thank you for making this wonderful video.

[@Harakatheboye]

rawr x3

[@PurdySuki]

Real

[@geologyjoerocks]

Maybe the amber with the Dino tail was dragged along by the dinosaur for some distance before it broke off. There would be scratch marks on the amber perhaps

[@jayssongreenfield]

I wonder if when creationists watch shows like this they think Satan put that stuff in the amber to make non believers doubt gods existence 😅

[@cetchathach4206]

I think that's exactly what they think. That, or all paleontologists in the world are "lying to them".... for some unknown reason.

[@satkinson5505]

No. They think funny a gecko still looks like a gecko. A flea was still a flea. And they think 45 million years 95 million years...really! Lol. Good stories, but just stories. You all believe it,but that doesn't make it true. Don't stop and think about it too long, or you might realize how silly it all is.

[@Karthik-pn2yj]

​​@@satkinson5505 blah blah blah.... yap yap yap.... what were you saying again?? shut up

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

They just claim its fabricated by scientists. Still stupid, but comparatively "reasonable"

[@spracketskooch]

You need to specify Christians, as all religions are creationist. Also, you need to be less arrogant. Michael Levin's work is demonstrating that DNA does not control morphology, but is instead controlled by electrical gradients across the cells of an organism. We have no understanding of how that factors into evolution. That may be why a gecko from 100 million years ago looks essentially the same as a modern gecko despite having different DNA. Instead of engaging with creationists in an honest, rational discussion, you arrogantly dismiss and mock them. Hardly scientific, my dawg.

[@Tulip258]

They ought to breed that old gecko with an elephant and make a dinosaur mammoth! Cmon lets go!

[@AstrixCloud]

I was trapped in Amber once, gosh she was good, but it was a pretty sticky situation so I had to leave before I got stuck.

[@moranmike36]

Great vid. Thanks

[@vortexmazz1137]

The lizard to me is crazy and the flee but just thinking about how our pangea was, to me it's almost incomprehensible in what it looked like

[@LivingTheGoodLife777]

Wow, it’s amazing how that gecko from 34 million years ago looks exactly the same as the ones we have today!

[@JohnDillon-zh7js]

I discovered a gecko in the eighties.And bred the largest in the world. Like the gecko the most. So cool

[@n.b.p.davenport7066]

In northern Arizona there's a species of White Cedar, that gives us delicious pignoli nuts😃 and the sap that comes out is practically clear, some people out here chew it instead of gum. I found it tastes like turpentine😢

[@shinobione2575]

The part about Miramar is ridiculous…it shouldn’t matter where they come from

[@mollymorrison4094]

updated science on gecko stick actually finds van der waals is a minor part of the quantum effects used to keep them on walls! look into it!

[@KiNgSaRcAsMoNe]

I’ve been caught in Amber before, it was a nightmare to pull myself out again.

[@randybonner9870]

Just because this particular group isn't going to pay for the fossils , there will certainly be many other buyers to choose from .

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

What i wonder more about is why did the trees just spurt out amber all over, catching animals? must have been literal fountains of resin back then

[@juanpascallucianobravado6112]

You’re such a wonderful science communicator.

[@bipedalcynodont962]

Yantarogecko is now one of my favorite fossils!!!!!!

[@JohnyG29]

Burma has produced some amazing finds.

[@Sushikatherman]

Those little bird teeth are so cute!

[@BryceTeeg]

If I ever get sent back in time I'm going to cover myself in amber and die doing the floss dance

[@latetotheparty4785]

Amber isn’t fossilized, nor are the creatures in the amber. Fossilization occurs when minerals displace the flora and fauna.

[@ernestpowelljr1262]

This video is the color of my energy.