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
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.
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.
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?
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.
That shouldn't be up to the kid, it should be up to whoever captured the kid and put them in a jar.
You're hereby *dis-invited* to my Biggest Fish party.
no way