Scientist find dinosaur tail preserved in amber—and it's covered in feathers

Utahrapter

Scientists working in the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar have found something very special in a fragment of Cretaceous amber.

The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur, including bones, soft tissue, and even feathers, has been found preserved in amber, according to a report published today in the journal Current Biology.

The wing of a bird, also from the Cretaceous period, was recently found in amber, but where the feathers of the ancient bird wing had the stiff central shaft and well developed structures to support flight, the feathers from the dinosaur tail were softer and more like the plumage some birds sprout for display.

The dinosaur feathers feature a poorly defined central shaft (rachis) and appear to keel to either side of the tail. The open, flexible structure of the feathers is more similar to modern ornamental feathers than to flight feathers, which have well-defined central shafts, branches, sub-branches, and hooks that latch the structure together.

The tail belonged to a coelurosaur, a group that includes most upright, bipedal carnivores, including T. rex. However, this particular tail appears to be from another branch of the family tree, the Maniraptora, which includes not just those members of the group made famous for chasing people through Jurassic Park, but genuine oddballs like the Therizinosaurs.

The whole story, with some nice photos of the amber sample, is over at National Geographic, which helped fund the work of the discoverer, Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences.