A small salamander has been discovered preserved in amber. It is from a now extinct species and also confirms that salamander once lived in the Caribbean where now no salamander is found. The salamander provides a great look about how life was on the Caribbean Islands over 20 million years ago.

Study researchers said found baby salamander had a bad day, as its leg was bitten off by a predator and then it fell into a gooey resin container and got preserved forever. George Poinar, Jr., a professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science, said that he was quite surprised to find the salamander in amber.

"There are very few salamander fossils of any type, and no one has ever found a salamander preserved in amber, and finding it in Dominican amber was especially unexpected, because today no salamanders, even living ones, have ever been found in that region", affirmed Poinar.

The salamander has been dubbed as Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae and belonged to the family Plethodontidae. Poinar affirmed that the discovery confirms one thing that was once salamanders in the Caribbean, but it continues to be a mystery as to where they all have gone.

There is a possibility that they could have been killed due to a climatic event. The specimen most probably belonged to a time when islands like Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola were joined to mainland South America.