  In strongly anisotropic layered superconductors in tilted magnetic fields the
Josephson vortex lattice coexists with the lattice of pancake vortices. Due to
the interaction between them, the dissipation of the Josephson-vortex lattice
occurs to be very sensitive to the presence of the pancake vortices. If the
c-axis magnetic field is smaller then the corresponding lower critical field,
the pancake stacks are not formed but the individual pancakes may exist in the
fluctuational regime either near surface in large-size samples or in the
central region for small-size mesas. We calculate the contribution of such
fluctuating pancake vortices to the c-axis conductivity of the Josephson vortex
lattice and compare the theoretical results with measurements on small mesas
fabricated out of Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+\delta}$ crystals. A
fingerprint of fluctuating pancakes is characteristic exponential dependence of
the c-axis conductivity observed experimentally. Our results provide strong
evidence of the existence of the fluctuating pancakes and their influence on
the Josephson-vortex-lattice dissipation.
