Monday, December 12, 2016

A Dinosaur Tale

Reading this article on a dinosaur tail being found in amber was extremely interesting.

The picture is of the feather that was later founded to be a dinosaurs tail in amber from over 99 million years ago. Lisa Xing founded this amber in search of amber for the amber market. The finding also had several bones from the vertebrate which help indicate it was indeed a dinosaur. It was the  first skeletal material for a dinosaur and he quickly posted his findings to Current Biology.  The dinosaur must have died and stuck right into the resin of the amber to make this beautiful piece of art. Its just jaw dropping to see a real life remains of a dinosaur. Furthermore the amber is providing evidence on feathers and how and when they were developed. And just an understanding on feathers and dinosaurs in general. It is showing more that feathers don't necessary have to be right from a bird type of organism. 


Labels: Lisa XingCurrent Biology, feathers

3 comments:

  1. If I'm not mistaken, this may be the first ever recovery of dinosaur soft tissue. I took Dr. Bonnan's course on Dinosaurs freshman year and he made a point of the lack of any dinosaur soft tissue remains.

    Somebody should alert Dr. Bonnan I'm sure he'd be thrilled.

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  2. It also shows that the feathers on this particular animal were light and curly, defining characteristics of feathers used primarily for display. Not flight.

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  3. I know I've always heard that it was believed that dinosaurs had feathers, but there wasn't that much evidence behind that. Now with this, there is no doubting they had feathers. Light and flimsy ones to be specific.

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