A praying mantis preserved in amber for millions of years not a sculpture, but a real prehistoric insect trapped in tree resin and fossilized into a natural time capsule.
An entire moment from ancient Earth… frozen before humans even existed.
Check out : https://www.natureknows.org/2024/02/30-million-year-old-praying-mantis-is.html
poor little guy was rendered completely insane by an evil wizard casting the spell of forlorn encystment on him
Fun fact I picked up not too long ago: genetically, mantises are closer relatives to cockroaches than other insects. Lots of people have assumed that they were related to grasshoppers (in the Hawaiian language, the praying mantis is called something like “praying grasshopper” for instance). But nope. Green, cute, cockroach cousins.
This also lead me to my pet theory that we’d not have nearly as big a problem with cockroaches if they were green.
I think he’s dead man.
He’s dead, Jim
It’s death, Jim, but not as we know it.
Lovely plummage.
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad - it’s stone dead!
Genuine titlegore!
Beautiful piece of amber.
It must have gotten really bored
I was trying to think how much I’d be willing to pay for that. I wouldn’t outright reject eveen a few thousand euro offer.
Insects and other animals preserved in amber aren’t uncommon finds in the mineral collecting community. You could get a great specimen for under a hundred dollars depending on where you’re looking and when.
Don’t let your dreams stay dreams!
Can we use science to revive them?
Think of the questions we could ask!
Also, let it fight Baki.
Did trees 30 million years ago produce more sap? Or is that smaller than it looks? Because that’s an amazingly big and clear hunk of amber if that mantis is the size of the ones I normally see.
Man sap was a real problem millions of years ago
Not more than it is now, it’s just such a huge amount of time that smaller creatures have had to find themselves in those situations. Some thousands to 250 million years ago is a loooooong time for bugs and other critters to end up as amber fossils.
Where’s your god now
My god 30 million years, trapped in amber, alive? What madness lies behind those eyes? Can we only pray he never escapes his prison?
So I’m hearing that being trapped in amber results in immortality. Quick, someone tell the billionaires a new cure for death has been discovered!
Praying didn’t help the mantis, did it?
Valid point
The Jaunt is real
Longer than you think,lonGER THAN YOU THINK!!!
Doc… it’s eternity in there
It was absolutely not trapped alive for 30,000,000 years…
It got stuck in tree sap, and it died, and 30,000,000 years later it’s dead body is still in there.
It’s also wasn’t some instant snapshot of a moment, it most likely got stuck and then slowly covered until it could no longer breathe.
Real question: if the amber prevents the mantis from decaying, and its cells are still intact, is it actually dead? Do we know that for sure?
Real answer: yes, it’s as dead as anyone can be. 2 seconds after your death, your body isn’t decaying yet, but that doesn’t make you alive. Bodies kept in the freezers didn’t decay but still, are not alive at all.
If the mantis didn’t suffocate somehow, it would die of hunger or old age.
I guess the question is, what distinguishes a “dead” cell from a “live” one if it is not in decay? What makes this Mantis impossible to revive?
All that makes reviving any dead animal impossible plus much more.
The amber only protects the outer layer, I would assume that everything inside is already a dried pulp (but I am guessing).
What makes this Mantis impossible to revive?
Same reason CPR works right after someone drowns but not after they’ve been underwater a week…
You see, every cell has a “powerhouse” that turns stuff, including oxygen, into energy.
They keep a store of oxygen and food in every cell, respiration removes the waste and delivers resources.
Cut off respiration, and things start to shut down. Higher order systems first, and individual cells last.
That’s why sometimes CPR works, but it took so long that the brain was deprived of oxygen and suffers damage. Everything was deprived of oxygen, but the most complicated shit needs the most and runs out first.
An insect can be “brought back” after a much longer time than a human without problems, but there’s still a clock before each cell runs out of “on hand” resources and die. Whether or not decay happens after is completely separate.
For the absolutely most basic things like virus or bacteria, or even water bears, they’ve adapted to be able to spring back after a long time, sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of years…
But a mantis is just too complicated. Especially after 30 million years.
Most of the proteins within the cell would denature over (a fairly short) time, which means all the cell functions would fail. The cell membranes would also rupture and dissolve or rot eventually. Only the hard keratin exoskeleton would remain reasonably intact.
Yeah…
Insects breathe thru oxygen exchange thru skin.
You cover up all their skin in amber, they suffocate just like when a kid doesn’t poke holes in a jar lid.
Because there’s no oxygen, the bacteria also dies and no decay happens.
It’s the same as a peat bog corpse. There’s no life, it’s just with the complete absence of life there’s no decay. And the amber seals in moisture so there’s no dessication either.
Now on the flips side:
It’s not immediate. An old “jail house magic trick” is catch a live fly, put it in a bottle of water, and wait till the mark agrees it’s dead. The bet/grift is you can bring it back to life.
And you can, by rolling it in salt for a few seconds, it will get up and fly away.
You have seconds to bring it back, less than a minute
Much, much shorter than 30,000,000 years, that mantis ain’t coming back.
Ok, but did we try rolling the mantis in salt?
they suffocate just like when a kid doesn’t poke holes in a jar lid.
That shouldn’t be up to the kid, it should be up to whoever captured the kid and put them in a jar.
This is the problem with society today…
Back in my day, we had to poke our own airholes!
The premise is wrong, though. Resin tends to be acidic. You know what doesn’t like acid treatment? Chitin, on account of being a polysaccharide.
And even - or especially - if the resin was perfectly neutral, it would slowly suck the fats stored in the insect’s tissues out of the same.
Plus the O2 that’s slowly diffusing in - and out - of the resin will, especially in connection with sunlight, decompose more and more stuff.
Whatever the decomposition processes are, you can see an orange-tinted sort of halo around the mantis. That’s the mixing zone - mantis molecules, meet resin molecules.
It was probably upside down when the sap flowed over it. It’s antennae are completely vertical and would have been carried in the direction of the sap. Probably suffocated pretty quick, though it’s elevated forelimbs might have allowed it to struggle to breathe briefly as it was consumed by sap.
no way
You’re hereby *dis-invited* to my Biggest Fish party.
I’m surely no expert, but I’d make an educated guess that this Lil fellow has died a good while ago and isn’t trapped alive for 30 gazillion years.
Imagine what being found 30 million years later would’ve felt like tho.
Encino man
I’ve heard of that but never seen it.
“hmm…this is seriously fucked dude, Can I please go back?”
Not til you meet some of your great great great… grandchildren.
Either that or it really has to go to the bathroom now.
