What a 99 Million Year Old Dinosaur Wing in Amber Tells Us

This article was originally posted on Inverse. By Jacqueline Ronson The world's two most adorable fossils have been recovered in Myanmar. Two partial wings were found encased in amber, left behind 99 million years ago after baby winged dinosaurs got stuck in tree resin. Unfortunately, the little guys never got a chance to grow up, flap their cute wings around, find a mate, and hatch eggs of their own. But their tiny bodies are now a remarkable contribution to shaping our modern understanding of their prehistoric world. The wings are microscopic -- less than half an inch long from end to end. They are incredibly well preserved, showcasing details of the feathers, skin, and even coloration. Never before has the construction of bird-like dinosaur wings been found in such detail, according to an article published this week in Nature Communications. Just a few decades ago, the idea of feathered, warm-blooded dinosaurs was a matter of fringy speculation. Since then, troves of evidence of feathered dinosaurs have been unearthed, particularly in the well-preserved fossil beds of China and Mongolia. But these sedimentary fossils preserve only 2D feather impressions and provide a frustratingly limited snapshot of how the animal was held together. Fossil feathers preserved in amber can provide additional information, but until now those have only been found detached from the skin and bones of the species they came from. Those scale bars are just 1/5 of an inch long. These litt...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news