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Posts Tagged ‘amber’

A Dino Tail in Amber

Tuesday, December 27th, 2016

December 27, 2016

Lida Xing, a paleontologist (scientist who studies fossils) from the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, made a spectacular find just by going to the market. There, he found part of a tiny dinosaur—complete with feathers—perfectly preserved in amber.

This feathered dinosaur tail is preserved in a 99-million-year-old lump of amber. Similarly stuck are several ants, a beetle and bits of foliage. Credit: © Ryan C. McKellar, Royal Saskatchewan Museum

A lump of amber has preserved this feathered dinosaur tail (along with ants, a beetle, and bits of foliage) for 99 million years. Credit: © Ryan C. McKellar, Royal Saskatchewan Museum

Amber is a hard, yellowish-brown fossilized resin. It comes chiefly from the resins of pine trees that grew millions of years ago. These resins were gummy materials mixed with oils in the trees. When the oils oxidized (combined with oxygen), hard resins were left. These pine trees were then buried underground or underwater, and the resins slowly changed into lumps of amber. These lumps often contain insects trapped as the resins flowed from the trees. But finding larger animals such as small vertebrates (animals with backbones) is incredibly rare.

Xing found the remarkable fossil at an amber market in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar (also called Burma). The seller thought the bushy object in the amber was part of a plant and had polished the piece to be made into jewelry. But it was in fact part of the feathery tail of a small dinosaur. Xing promptly brought the specimen to fellow paleontologist Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada, where they studied it with other scientists using computed tomography (CT). Computed tomography involves taking many X-ray images of an object from a number of directions. A computer combines the set of X-ray “slices” of the object to create a three-dimensional image called a volumetric model. The scientists recently wrote about what they found in the journal Current Biology.

Paleontologists have discovered feathered dinosaur fossils in the past, but the heavy weight of the sediments and rocks deposited above them had flattened the carcasses during the fossilization process. Because this tail was trapped in amber, however, it was preserved in three dimensions, allowing scientists to see the exact layout of the feathers. Even traces of the pigments that colored the feathers have been preserved, showing that the animal would have been light brown with a whitish underside.

The tail likely belonged to a juvenile (young) bipedal dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus rex. Despite the specimen’s prominent plumage, paleontologists know that the tail belonged to a nonbird dinosaur (all birds are technically dinosaurs). The fossil dates back 99 million years, some 50 million years after the appearance of early birds such as Archaeopteryx. A tail from Archaeopteryx would have been short and stiff. The tail from this new fossil, however, is long and flexible. It is bent a great deal in the amber, and scientists estimate that only a third of the tail was preserved. Furthermore, the beautifully preserved feathers trapped in amber would have been useless for flight. The feathers possess simple barbs and barbules that would hold strands of the feathers together, but they have much thinner central shafts than modern flight-worthy feathers. These ancient feathers would have been soft and downy, and they probably kept the young animal warm.

The loss of the dinosaur’s tail in amber probably cost it its life. Dinosaurs could not detach their tails the way some lizards can. A dinosaur could likely survive without the tip of its tail, but this fossil is from the mid-section of a dinosaur’s tail. Once the hapless youngster got stuck in resin, it probably either starved to death or became an easy snack for a predator—except for the part stuck in resin, of course.

Lida Xing has a knack for making spectacular finds of amber-entrapped animals. Earlier this year, he announced the discovery of a pair of 100-million-year-old bird wings. His remarkable discoveries are shining a new light on the evolution of feathers in birds and dinosaurs.

Tags: amber, dinosaur, fossil, paleontology
Posted in Animals, Current Events, History, People, Prehistoric Animals & Plants, Science | Comments Off

Ancient Wings in Amber

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

July 19, 2016

Late last month, paleontologists (scientists who study fossils) announced an amazing discovery. Researchers led by Lida Xing at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing had discovered two bird wings preserved in amber. They published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

99-million-year-old  wing tip features bones, soft tissue, and feathers preserved in amber. Credit: © Ryan C. McKellar, Royal Saskatchewan Museum

Amber preserved this 100 million-year-old wing tip featuring bones, feathers, and soft tissue.
Credit: © Ryan C. McKellar, Royal Saskatchewan Museum

Amber is a hard, yellowish-brown fossilized resin. It comes chiefly from the resins of pine trees that grew millions of years ago. These resins were gummy materials mixed with oils in the trees. When the oils oxidized (combined with oxygen), hard resins were left. These pine trees were then buried underground or underwater, and the resins slowly changed into lumps of amber. These lumps often contain insects trapped as the resins flowed from the trees. But finding larger animals such as small vertebrates (animals with backbones) is incredibly rare. In the 1993 science fiction film Jurassic Park, dinosaur DNA (deoxyriboneucleic acid) is discovered in the blood of an ancient mosquito fossilized in amber. Movie scientists then used the DNA to recreate dinosaurs—an improbable, yet intriguing, plot line.

The wing fossil subjects of last month’s report were formed about 100 million years ago, in the Cretaceous Period, in what is now Myanmar (also called Burma). Two birds apparently became stuck in the sticky resin of a tree and died. The amber preserved the three-dimensional structure of the birds’ wings, as well as the wings’ feathers, skin, and bones—even the color patterns!

Xing and his team think the wings came from a group of birds called enantiornithines, which means opposite birds in Greek. These birds had claws and teeth, and they went extinct along with the nonflying dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. The fossils showed that the wings were from young birds and that the birds hatched as miniature adults, ready to fly. This is different from modern birds, which must develop for weeks or months before they can leave the nest.

The structure of the wings and the arrangement of feathers are similar to modern bird wings. Birds evolved (developed over time) about 150 million years ago from meat-eating dinosaurs, so they must have quickly developed modern-looking wings, before enantiornithines and the ancestors of modern birds split.

Unlike science fiction, these fossils won’t resurrect the extinct enantiornithines, even if they do contain DNA. The technology to create entire animals from bits of ancient DNA does not yet—and might never—exist. The fossils do, however, offer paleontologists a treasure trove of information that will help us better understand early birds and their world.

Tags: amber, birds, dinosaurs, dna, paleontology
Posted in Animals, Current Events, Prehistoric Animals & Plants, Science | Comments Off

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