Tag: incredibly lucky for science

currentsinbiology:

Baby bird found in 99-million-year-old amber

A nugget of amber from Myanmar has been found with a nearly complete baby bird inside. The specimen is one of the several recently discovered amber nuggets with entombed body parts of feathered dinosaurs.

Paleontologists Lida Xing and colleagues announced the discovery of one of the most amazing fossil specimens yet known: a baby bird preserved in a nugget of amber. The amber specimen, about the size of half of an avocado, allows details of the bird’s anatomy to be seen in extraordinary detail and in three dimensions, something no other fossil specimen have shown.

Rocks deposited in the middle portion of the Cretaceous Period from Myanmar (formerly called Burma) are famous for their numerous large amber specimens. This amber is important for the gem and jewelry industry, and many scientifically important amber specimens have been discovered in amber markets. Amber is formed when tree sap is buried in sediment. Over millions of years, the sap hardens and can frequently contain parts of plants and insects. On rare occasions, amber can preserve portions of larger animals, as in this case.

Read the original research in Gondwana Research.