Researchers have found a dozen ancient lizard fossils locked in amber, which they believe could offer a quick look at a lost world. The unsuspecting lizards from the Cretaceous period fell into amber some 99 million years ago in modern-day Myanmar. The fossils are well preserved and can offer interesting information about evolution of lizards.

The prehistoric chunks are one of the oldest specimens to have been ever found, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Now, the researchers are conducting experiments on these tiny ancient lizards to better understand the evolution of the reptile.

Lizards are squamate (scaled) reptiles, with more than 6,000 species ranging across almost every region of the planet, except Antarctica. Myanmar is also famous for diverse population of lizards.

“The assemblage is cool because it has some examples which are really, really modern and then others which are really, really old, and then others in between”, said Edward Stanley, a researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History and an author of the new research.

The amber preserved the ancient reptiles for a long time, and they are definitely geckos, said Stanley. The prehistoric specimens have toe pads like geckos we see today. Modern geckos use these pads for climbing purpose and to perform some other sticky-footed feats.

The lizards preserved in amber had toe pads more similar to today’s geckos, which indicated that even millions of years ago geckos had the tool to perform many important tasks, according to Stanley.

The researchers studied a CT scan of the ancient creature and found that its skeleton was same as today’s chameleons, but the features were same and modern lizards. It suggests that the critter was a halfway stop between earlier chameleons and modern chameleon, said Stanley.