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
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.
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?
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!