The dinosaur is a small-sized relative of the T-Rex. Photo / Chung-tat Cheung
The dinosaur is a small-sized relative of the T-Rex. Photo / Chung-tat Cheung
The feathered tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur has been discovered, miraculously preserved in amber.
The tail which includes the bones, soft tissue and even feathers comes from a tiny dinosaur that is a sparrow-sized relative of the T-Rex.
The incredible find is the first high-quality example of dinosaur feathers to be preserved and perhaps even more astonishingly, it was brought to the world's attention after it was discovered on sale at a market in Myitkyina, Myanmar.
The feathers inside it had originally been mistaken for a plant by the market vendors. However microscopic examination and CT scans confirmed it to be part of the tail of a flightless dinosaur, and not an early species of bird.
The research was led by palaeontologist Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences. "I realised that the content was a vertebrate, probably theropod, rather than any plant," he told CNN.
"I was not sure that (the vendor) really understood how important this specimen was, but he did not raise the price."
A close up of the amber. Photo / Royal Saskatchewan Museum
The tiny fossil fragment - about the size of a 50 cent piece - preserved one of the earliest moments of differentiation between the feathers of birds of flight and the feathers of dinosaurs.
"With preservation in amber, the finest details of feathers are visible in three dimensions, providing concrete evidence for feather morphologies and arrangement upon the tail, as well as supporting an important role for barbs and barbules in feather evolution," the authors wrote in a paper published today in the journal Current Biology.
CT scans and microscopic analysis of the sample revealed eight vertebrae from the middle or end of the thin tail but researchers believe the tail was likely three times longer, consisting of about 25 vertebrae.
They said the complete tail would have been "long and flexible, with keels of feathers running down each side."
"Recent finds from Asia have revealed unexpected diversity in feather morphologies and flight modes among the proliferation of small Jurassic-Cretaceous theropods near the origin of birds with powered flight," the paper said.
But even with the "once in a lifetime" find, if you're hoping for the possibility of Jurassic Park, you'll be disappointed.
In the famed movie series, scientists genetically engineered dinosaurs in the lab by extracting dinosaur DNA from the blood found inside insects preserved in amber.
But Ryan McKellar, a Canadian palaeontologist and co-author of the paper said that while soft tissue and decayed blood from the tail were found in the fossilised amber, no genetic material was preserved.
"Unfortunately, the Jurassic Park answer is still a 'no' - this is firmly in the realm of science fiction," he said.
