A dinosaur's tail, 99 million years old, with all bones, soft tissue and even feathers, was found preserved in amber. They wrote about this in the journal Current Biology. And although individual feathers of the dinosaur era have already been found in amber, and there is plenty of evidence for the existence of feathered dinosaurs, this is the first time archaeologists and paleontologists have obtained such well-preserved remains of ancient creatures. In turn, this piece of amber will give us a deeper understanding of the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers.
The study was led by Lida Qin of China University of Geosciences.
Talking tail
A semi-translucent mid-Cretaceous amber, about the size of dried apricots, captured one of the first moments of differentiation between flying bird feathers and dinosaur feathers. We have already written in detail that the dinosaurs were not armored monsters at all, but cute chicks.
Inside the lump of hardened resin is a 3.5-centimeter outgrowth covered with fine chestnut feathers with a whitish underline.
CT scans and microscopic analysis of the specimen showed eight vertebrae from the middle or end of a long, thin tail, which may have originally consisted of more than 25 vertebrae.
Based on the structure of the tail, scientists believe it belongs to a young coelurosaurus, part of the theropod dinosaur group that includes everything from tyrannosaurs to modern birds.
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Can birds fly?
The presence of the hinged tail vertebrae in the specimen allowed scientists to rule out the possibility that the feathers belonged to a prehistoric bird. Modern birds and their closest Cretaceous ancestors have a set of caudal vertebrae called pygostyle. It allows the tail feathers to move as a unit.
"If you've ever cooked a turkey, you've seen the pigostil," says study co-author Ryan McKelar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.
The feathers of this dinosaur have a weakly defined central trunk (rachis) and diverge on either side of the tail. The open, flexible feather structure is more like modern ornamental feathers than flight feathers, which have well-defined trunks, branches, sub-branches and hooks that hold the structure together.
In June of this year, the same group of scientists found in amber feathers of wings of birds of the Cretaceous era, which turned out to be surprisingly similar to the flight feathers of modern birds.
This study concludes that if the entire length of the tail were covered with feathers of this type, then the dinosaur would hardly be able to fly. Most likely, these feathers performed a signaling function or played a role in temperature regulation, McKellar said.
The poorly developed tail feathers also suggest that their owner is somewhere in the lower part of the theropod evolutionary tree, "possibly a basal (primitive) maniraptor."
Almost a piece of jewelry
An amber sample - formally named DIP-V-15103, and informally "Eve" after paleobotanist Eva Koppelgus, wife of study co-author Philip Currie, was found in a mine in the Hukong Valley in Kachin in northern Myanmar. Amber from this area is likely to contain the widest variety of Cretaceous plant and animal life.
It was one of dozens of amber specimens with significant inclusions collected by Qing and his research team in 2015 from the well-known amber market in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin. Two other specimens contained the feathers of dinosaur-era birds that scientists wrote about earlier this summer.
Burmese amber is mostly used in jewelry and carvings, and the "Eve" sample was already subject to "cutting" by the time scientists found it.