A dinosaur tail covered with feathers is found in amber of 99 million years ago

In the current biological evolution theory, the theory that "birds are the survival of dinosaurs" is powerful, but a paper supporting this was published. The dinosaur tail covered with feather-like things was preserved in a very good condition in amber (amber) considered to be in the mid-Cretaceous period excavated at the northeastern part of Myanmar It became clear by the paper.

A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber: Current Biology
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(16)31193-9

This paper was published by a research team by Lida Shin et al., A paleontologist at the Geological University of China, at the academic journal Current Biology. You can see that amber, which is considered to be about 99 million years ago, is preserved with feathers growing. Since amber is made by secretions from trees and the like, it is preserved in a more natural state than fossils buried in the soil and under pressure.


I was told that this amber was found among amber accessories for souvenirs sold as local special products. It also shows that creatures like ants are trapped in it.


It is this object initially thought to be a tree, but if you observe it well, it turned out that it is a kind of dinosaur's tail from its shape etc. The owner is a dinosaur of the size of modern sparrow "CoelrosaurusIt is considered to be a young individual.

If you check the feather well, you can see that it is finely divided into branches. It is a structure that is commonly found in modern feathers, and it also means that you can learn the process of evolution of feathers.


One of them is that there is no thick "wing axis" existing in the central part of the feathers of modern birds. At the beginning, the process of evolution is thought that feathers starting from thin one body hair gradually increase in number, branching occurs, and further wing shafts are generated.


The discovery of this time is that what was sold at the local accessory shop as a processed product of amber happened to be discovered by chance, in fact the possibility that the main body structure other than the tail was preserved You can also think. It seems likely that the possibility that traces of ancient organisms such as dinosaurs will be found more closely to the real thing is left largely in the future.

In addition, DNA was not collected from the specimen. Unfortunately, it seems that the revival of dinosaurs like the movie "Jurassic Park" can not be realized.