99 million years old dinosaur’s bones, soft tissue, and feathers preserved in amber has been found in a mine near Myanmar by a team of scientists from China.
Although, individual feathers from the dinosaur-era have been found, the proper evidence of the existence of feathered dinosaurs were captured in fossil impressions till date; but this- for the very first time, scientists can clearly associate “well-preserved” feathers of a dinosaur to study the evolution and the structure.
The research, led by palaeontologist Lida Xing, China University of Geosciences, found a semi-translucent mid-Cretaceous amber sample, preserving a 1.4 inch part of the feathered tail, roughly the colour of chestnut with a pale underside besides a cretaceous era ant and parts of plant debris.
CT scans and numerous microscopic analysis revealed about8 vertebrae from the end of a long, thin tail that might have been originally been more than 25 vertebrae.On the basis of the structure of the tail, researchers assume it belongs to a juvenile coelurosaur, which are a part of theropod dinosaurs that includes everything from tyrannosaurs to birds. With the presence of articulated tail vertebrae helped the scientists in ruling out the possibility of the dinosaur being able to fly or the tail belonging to a pre-historic bird.
The study says that if the complete length of the dinosaur tail was covered by the same type of feathers that are in the sample, the dinosaur would be incapable of flight, and that those feathers servedeither a signalling function or regulated temperature.
Lida Xing, confidently speculates, “Maybe we can find a complete dinosaur.”
By: Archa Dave
