Canberra — An international team is investigating a remarkable juvenile snail trapped in amber. They estimate the creature to be about 99 million years old. The shell is easy to see, but what’s truly remarkable are the preserved soft tissues, including the head, tentacle, and eyespot. “It is absolutely extraordinary for the fossil record to produce such stunning preservation, which is exceedingly rare for any fossil of this age, especially snails and many other animals,” said paleontologist Jeffrey Stilwell with Monash University in Australia.

The university calls the discovery “the first and oldest preserved soft tissue of a snail in the fossil record from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar.” The Cretaceous period is known for its iconic dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex. — Agencies