Paleontologists found in amber in the tail of a dinosaur with feathers
The authors believe that this is a fragment of the tail belongs grovel from the group of coelurosaurs, the age of the finds is estimated at 99 million years (Cretaceous period).
Chinese paleontologists have discovered in Myanmar amber, which preserved feather-a fragment of the tail of a dinosaur, allegedly from the group of theropods. A study published in Current Biology.
Despite the fact that the existence of feathers in some dinosaurs known from the late twentieth century, scientists still received only single feathers or traces in the fossil record.
In the past year were found the first remains of the dinosaur era in which it was possible to associate the feathers with fragments of the skeleton, however, it was not the feathers of dinosaurs and the remains of birds from a subclass enantiornithes. Thus, discovered in the amber of a fragment of the tail — first to date, the sample-preserved feathers, which are directly connected with dinosaurs.
Dino tail found preserved in amber, has feathers https://t.co/1yMAv0IIXd pic.twitter.com/k9AJg3Wtho
— CNET (@CNET) December 9, 2016
The piece of amber was accidentally discovered on the market in Kachin state, the merchant planned to sell it as raw material for jewelry.
Inside a piece of amber weighing 6.5 grams with the naked eye is visible a fragment of the tail length in millimeters 36,73 covered with pigmented feathers.See also
When sloths were large
The authors believe that this is a fragment of the tail belongs grovel from the group of coelurosaurs, the age of the finds is estimated at 99 million years (Cretaceous period).
Previously, paleontologists have found a way to estimate the color of the feathers of certain types of dinosaurs that lived in the Jurassic period.
Was also recently discovered an ancient protein-keratin of feathers age of 130 million years.
Nikolai Vorontsov