Feathered dinosaur tail in Burmese amber
Cola de dinosaurio emplumado en ámbar birmano
- Date
- 2016 · confidence high
- Place
- Hukawng Valley, Kachin, Myanmar
- Credited to
- Xing Lida and colleagues (Dexu Institute of Palaeontology)
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
The feathered tail of a juvenile coelurosaur preserved in mid-Cretaceous amber (about 99 million years old), announced in 2016. It showed feathers with a primitive structure in three dimensions, something impossible to see in rock fossils.
The specimen was bought in an amber market in Myitkyina and deposited in China. In 2020 the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology urged reconsidering use of Burmese amber because of the war in Kachin; the Oculudentavis case (2020), classified as a bird and then as a lizard, was retracted by the journal.
What it led to
- studies of the evolution of feathers in dinosaurs and birds
- the boom in Burmese amber research (insects, birds, lizards)
- the ethical debate over amber trade in conflict zones