Lizard’s ‘great escape’ was frozen in amber for 99 million years

A 99-million-year-old fossilised lizard tail seems to be the oldest-known evidence of the creatures’ ability to intentionally detach their appendages. Many modern-day lizards escape from predators by shedding and leaving behind their tails as a distraction, an ability called caudal autotomy. A 3D reconstruction of the fossilized tail revealed rosette-like wedges of muscle around a clean-cut bone — characteristics similar to those of modern shed tails. Researchers had long suspected that this behaviour was ancient in origin, but had found little evidence of it in known fossils.