In May 2015 a paleontologist, Lida Xing, found an amber
sample presenting some very important information while digging in the amber mines of Mayamar.
Inside the plastic amber case was a feathered tail
of a dinosaur believed to have been preserved in there for 9.9 million years. Initial analysis of the tail showed that the tail does in fact belong to a dinosaur and not a bird based on the number of vertebrates present.
The feathers were also very intriguing as they vary greatly from that of modern
birds. The flight feathers that modern birds have are made up of a central
shaft, called a rachis, which has smaller barbs jutting out from it, and then
even smaller feather filaments, called barbules, coming out from those. The
dinosaur feathers however don’t have a rachis, and instead are just made up of
the barbs and barbules. This provides information on how feathers first began
to develop, and also supports the conclusion that these first dinosaur feathers
weren’t used for flight, but instead were most likely ornamental feathers used by
the dinosaur to signal to one another.
The tail didn’t just simply provide information on the structural
evolution of dinosaurs, scientists were also able to look at the chemistry of
the tail’s surface. This revealed the presence of ferrous iron, a decomposition
product of hemoglobin that was originally present in the dinosaur’s tissue. Based on how well the ferrous iron was
preserved, it is believed that further analysis will provide much more information
about the chemistry of the tail, and possibly even the dinosaur's DNA. Finding well
preserved samples of ancient organisms like this is very valuable, as they are
not plentiful. The information that this sample has provided and will provide in
the future could lead to some important discoveries that will give answers to
some of the many questions currently held about dinosaurs.
