'Once in a lifetime find': Dinosaur tail discovered trapped in amber

[Conil]

Can we extract the DNA like in Jurassic Park?
Great picture. Shows birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur has been found entombed in amber, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists.

Xing Lida, a Chinese paleontologist found the specimen, the size of a dried apricot, at an amber market in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border.
The remarkable piece was destined to end up as a curiosity or piece of jewelry, with Burmese traders believing a plant fragment was trapped inside.
"I realized that the content was a vertebrate, probably theropod, rather than any plant," Xing told CNN.
"I was not sure that (the trader) really understood how important this specimen was, but he did not raise the price."

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/08/health/dinosaur-tail-trapped-in-amber-trnd/index.html

 

[Aardvark154]

Fascinating, it of course begs the questions did large dinosaurs also have feathers, and how early in the evolution of dinosaurs did feathers develop

 

[Aardvark154]

Always remember that cute chickadee is in fact a living, breathing, dinosaur.

 

[SchlongConery]

Pure bullshit!

If it wasn't on Noah's Ark or mentioned in the Bible the it cannot be true.

Still doesn't explain why there were no kangaroos on Noah's Ark.

 

[Terminator2000]

Kind of a coincidence that a paleontologist happened to find it.

like, how many paleontologists do u know in ur social circle, or when u go to work or meet at a party? one? two? none? paleontologists arent exactly a common job title.

 

[Jubee]

Thanks for posting this! I'm a huge dinosaur/prehistoric nerd. Although I think Jurassic Park is a bit ridiculous, I always enjoy visiting natural history museums and dinosaur exhibits ever since I was little. I wonder what scientists will be able to glean from this. I'm still curious about a few things such as:

Did dinosaurs move in staccato movements like birds do today? Even the large theropods and sauropods?
Did most dinosaurs have feathers?
What was the real purpose for sail-like fins on some dinosaurs?
And what colour were they really? -as this is widely interpreted in movies and art work.

Fins provide stability.
As for Jurassic Park come on now, one of the best movies ever (haven't read the book)..

 

[Ref]

Did dinosaurs move in staccato movements like birds do today? Even the large theropods and sauropods?
Did most dinosaurs have feathers?
What was the real purpose for sail-like fins on some dinosaurs?
And what colour were they really? -as this is widely interpreted in movies and art work.

1. I would assume so.
2. Yes, they were primarily birds.
3. Defense and mating purposes.
4. Various, similar to most birds today

 

[JackBurton]

Fascinating!

Btw am I the only one that wonders how one of those smaller, feathered dinosaurs would taste on the BBQ? They are the 99,000,000 grandfathers of chicken, bet it would be dandy.

 

[Minx2You]

Yep

Read about this online last night. Very interesting. Love it.

-Ms Pepper

 

[radagast]

Kind of a coincidence that a paleontologist happened to find it.

If I were a paleontologist who had dedicated her whole life to the study of early dinosaurs, I would likely be trolling the amber markets of north-western China hoping for just this event. I'd make tenure with that sort of discovery.

On the other hand, if I were a paleontologist who had dedicated her whole life to the study of early dinosaurs, I might be really tempted to pass off a chicken feather in spruce gum as a 100 million year old fossil, if it meant the difference between getting tenure or not.

 

[fuji]

Kind of a coincidence that a paleontologist happened to find it.

like, how many paleontologists do u know in ur social circle, or when u go to work or meet at a party? one? two? none? paleontologists arent exactly a common job title.

My interpretation of your true statement is that it means there's likely tons of evidence out there that just has never been seen by the right person, made into jewelry and other junk and likely in landfills by now.

 

[Insidious Von]

Birds were always a problem for geologists, feathers did not exist during the proto -mammal Permian Era. Then in the epoch following the Cretaceous extinction, what were once known as Thunderbirds ruled South America.

 

[FAST]

The other problem I have is, how the dinos that lived in Alberta were once to believed to be cold blooded, now we have a new theory that they were some combination of warm and cold blooded, this as I understand it, is because of the other debate, about what the climate was when dinos existed in Alberta.

FAST

 

[Smallcock]

Most dinosaurs were birds or bird-like? I always thought they were mostly reptiles?

 

[fuji]

Most dinosaurs were birds or bird-like? I always thought they were mostly reptiles?

One specific group of dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds, so in that sense birds ARE dinosaurs. But birds have evolved significantly in the 65 million years since then, and MOST dinosaurs just went extinct have no modern descendants.

 

[Insidious Von]

Jurrasic World was ridiculous, Mosasaur is not as big as Megalodon. It and T-Rex had the strongest bite force of all dinasours, so a hybrid dinosaur would not have stood a chance against either one.

Some scientists believe that monitor lizards are descendant from Mosasaur. Mosasaur's jaw was the inspiration for Ridley Scott's Alien.

 

[MissCroft]

Always remember that cute chickadee is in fact a living, breathing, dinosaur.

Yep. http://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/ne...-shrinking-helped-dinosaurs-and-birds-to-keep


I don't know if anyone here remembers but there was a great exhibit a few years back at the ROM that took you through the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. It was done really well and I got a personal tour from someone who worked there. Even the Tyrannosaurus Rex had tiny, short arms that looked like a precursor to arms developing into feathers.




http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06