. | . |
Paleontologists find Cretaceous-era baby bird trapped in amber by Brooks Hays Washington (UPI) Jun 8, 2017
Scientists have discovered the remains of a Cretaceous-era baby bird inside a piece of 99-million-year-old amber. The amber fossil was found in Myanmar and purchased by scientists from local amber hunters. The baby bird became trapped in tree sap just a few days after hatching. The resin hardened into amber, preserving roughly roughly half of the tiny bird, including its neck bones, claws, a single wing and toothed jaws. It's the most complete Burmese amber fossil yet recovered. Scientists say the specimen belonged to a group of birds called Enantiornithes, which disappeared along with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. "Enantiornithines are close relatives to modern birds, and in general, they would have looked very similar. However, this group of birds still had teeth and claws on their wings," Ryan McKellar, a paleontologist at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, told the Washington Post. The newborn bird's feathers -- a combination of white, brown and dark grey -- were probably unable to generate or sustain flight, researchers say. But previous Enantiornithine discoveries suggest the birds were capable fliers. The birds were born into a dangerous landscape without much help from their parents. Researchers believe baby Enantiornithines hatched on the ground and had to quickly scurry into the safety of nearby trees to avoid predation. Hatchlings regularly became stuck in resin en route. "The hatchling may have been dead by the time it entered [the resin pool]," McKellar said. "One of the leg bones has been dragged away from its natural position, suggesting that the corpse may have been scavenged before it was covered by the next flow of resin." Researchers were able to identify the bird's by surveying the preserved clawed foot, but they didn't realize how much of the specimen was preserved behind thick layers of amber until they imaged the fossil. "[I thought we had] just a pair of feet and some feathers before it underwent CT imaging. It was a big, big, big surprise after that," Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences told National Geographic. "The surprise continued when we started examining the distribution of feathers and and realized that there were translucent sheets of skin that connected many of the body regions appearing in the CT scan data," said McKellar. Researchers described their discovery in the journal Gondwana Research.
Washington (UPI) Jun 7, 2017 Some paleontologists look for dinosaur bones. Others look for mushrooms. And one of those fungus hunters, a paleontologist from the University of Illinois, has discovered the oldest fossil mushroom in the world. The 115-million-year-old fossil was discovered in the limestone in Brazil. The mineralized mushroom hails from a time when all of the world's continents formed a single piece of ... read more Related Links Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |