News: Dinosaur tail with feathers discovered in amber

getback

Quote:

The tail of a 99-million year old dinosaur has been found entombed in amber, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists.

Xing Lida, a Chinese paleontologist found the specimen, the size of a dried apricot, at an amber market in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border.
The remarkable piece was destined to end up as a curiosity or piece of jewelry, with Burmese traders believing a plant fragment was trapped inside.
"I realized that the content was a vertebrate, probably theropod, rather than any plant," Xing told CNN.
"I was not sure that (the trader) really understood how important this specimen was, but he did not raise the price."
The findings, which shed fresh light on how dinosaurs looked, are published in the December issue of Current Biology.
Ryan McKellar, a paleontologist at the Royal Saskatchwan Museum in Canada and co-author of the paper, says he was blown away when Xing first showed him the piece of amber.
"It's a once in a lifetime find. The finest details are visible and in three dimensions."
Fragments of dinosaur-era bird wings have been found preserved in amber before but this is the first time part of a mummified dinosaur skeleton has been discovered, McKellar said.
The tail section belongs to a young coelurosaurian -- from the same group of dinosaurs as the predatory velociraptors and the tyrannosaurus.
The sparrow-sized creature could have danced in the palm of your hand.
The amber, which weighs 6.5 grams, contains bone fragments and feathers, adding to mounting fossil evidence that many dinosaurs sported primitive plumage rather than scales.

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The unfortunate owner of these feathers is thought to have been a juvenile coelurosaur, a clade of theropod dinosaurs that included velociraptors and tyrannosaurs. The question of whether feathers were universal or relatively rare among dinosaurs remains a live debate, but coelurosaurs, defined by their close relationships to birds, have provided most of the examples we have found of dinosaur feathers.

"We can be sure of the source because the vertebrae are not fused into a rod or pygostyle as in modern birds and their closest relatives. Instead, the tail is long and flexible, with keels of feathers running down each side," said Ryan Mckellar of Saskatchewan Museum, one of the paper's authors, in a statement.

The feathers are brown on top with a pale underside. They more closely resemble ornamental plumage in modern birds than flight feathers and lack a well-developed central shaft (rachis), suggesting this was a feature that appeared later in feather evolution. The specimen is so well preserved, we can see that there were two rows of feathers evenly spaced along the tail. Given the age of the dinosaur when it died, the authors are unsure if these are adult feathers or would subsequently be replaced.

The discovery comes with further scientific potential, as scraps of surviving soft tissue can be seen and the high content of ferrous (Fe2+) iron suggests hemoglobin from actual dinosaur blood awaits analysis.

Source: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and...ific-dinosaur/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/health...inkId=32110038

Mezter

Big bird would be SHOOK

Ryuuchan_X

I refuse to believe Dinosaurs had feathers. That is not what Jurassic Park depicted.

getback

Quote:

Originally posted by Ryuuchan_X

I refuse to believe Dinosaurs had feathers. That is not what Jurassic Park depicted.

will you believe it if it appears in Jurassic World 2

Almodusa

Bet they were hunties

Lukey

1. What is Amber?
2. How was it in Amber?
3. How do they know it's 99 million years old?
4. How were the feathers still in tact after 99 million years?
5. I thought only birds have feathers, so what, Dinosaurs are now birds?

This Is Acting

So adorable

Paparazzaid

Yas queen

azii

omg cute

Eglė

Cutie pie mm

Ryuuchan_X

Quote:

Originally posted by getback

will you believe it if it appears in Jurassic World 2

Yes.

snowo

omg so cuteeeeeeeeeeeeee

Pharaoh

k k k kawaii

katara

Quote:

Originally posted by Lukey

1. What is Amber?
2. How was it in Amber?
3. How do they know it's 99 million years old?
4. How were the feathers still in tact after 99 million years?
5. I thought only birds have feathers, so what, Dinosaurs are now birds?

Not all dinosaurs had feathers but many of them did (especially the smaller ones like raptors). Those feathered dinosaurs were the only ones to survive the dinosaur mass extinction that happened 65 million years ago and they evolved over time to become the feathered birds we know today.

So yes technically everytime you eat chicken you are eating a feathered dinosaur.

Saeju

Quote:

Originally posted by Lukey

1. What is Amber?
2. How was it in Amber?
3. How do they know it's 99 million years old?
4. How were the feathers still in tact after 99 million years?
5. I thought only birds have feathers, so what, Dinosaurs are now birds?

1. Amber is crystallized tree resin.
2. http://www.zoomschool.com/subjects/d...Fossilhow.html
3. They use techniques like carbon dating etc.
4. Because it was preserved.

liberalmusiclover

In old amber? Aerodactyl teas.

UnusualBoy

Quote:

Originally posted by Lukey

1. What is Amber?
2. How was it in Amber?
3. How do they know it's 99 million years old?
4. How were the feathers still in tact after 99 million years?
5. I thought only birds have feathers, so what, Dinosaurs are now birds?

1. Amber is fossilized tree resin, which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times.
2. The dinosaur must've died near a tree hence the amber was on its tail
3. Carbon-14 maybe?
4. The amber helps to prevent things, paleontologist have found insects and other animals trapped inside of it and we're talking about animals that died million of years ago.
5.

the birds are descendant of the dinosaurs not backwards. In fact some dinosaurs used to have feathers, most of them were bipedal and carnivores.

Mettaton

Quote:

Originally posted by liberalmusiclover

In old amber? Aerodactyl teas.

Alolan Aerodactyl should of had feathers.

princedonte

Amazing

JonginBey

Now, revive ha!