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LESSON 8
A Feathery Find in Amber
In December 2016, while browsing markets in Myanmar, Chinese scientists discovered something extraordinary in a chunk of amber. Inside was a part of the feathery tail of a tiny 99-million-year-old dinosaur. It was really an astonishing fossil. The new find was the first with clearly identifiable feathers of a real dinosaur.
The dinosaur, about the size of a sparrow, may have looked like a miniature tyrannosaurus rex. The tail was about the length of a matchstick with the colors of its feathers well-preserved—brown on top and white on its underside.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that many dinosaurs, like birds, had feathers instead of scales. Some believe that birds are descended from dinosaurs. Unfortunately, dinosaur feathers pressed flat into rock don’t provide enough information about their structure. But this new fossil in amber can offer much more. Amber protected the fossil from chemicals and the weather, so we can see its finest details in 3D.
There are limits to what this new find can reveal about feathered dinosaurs. But the tiny fossil may offer a rare view of the structure and organization of dinosaur feathers and help us understand the evolution of dinosaurs.