The bird belonged to an ancient group of toothed birds called Enantiornithes, which went extinct along with the dinosaurs. This reconstruction captures the hatchling's pose as preserved in the amber.
Posted on 07/14/2017 12:18:02 PM PDT by ETL
The 99-million-year-old hatchling from the Cretaceous Period is the best preserved of its kind
The remains of a baby bird from the time of the dinosaurs have been discovered in a specimen of 99-million-year-old amber, according to scientists writing in the journal Gondwana Research.
The hatchling belonged to a major group of birds known as enantiornithes, which went extinct along with dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. Funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, this discovery is providing critical new information about these ancient, toothed birds and how they differed from modern birds.
This is also the most complete fossil yet to be discovered in Burmese amber. Mined in the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar, Burmese amber deposits contain possibly the largest variety of animal and plant life from the Cretaceous period, which lasted from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.
The bird belonged to an ancient group of toothed birds called Enantiornithes, which went extinct along with the dinosaurs. This reconstruction captures the hatchling's pose as preserved in the amber.
Based on its molting pattern, researchers could determine that the bird was only in its first days or weeks of life when it was enveloped in sticky tree resin and literally frozen in time. Nearly half of the body is preserved in the three-inch sample, including its head, wings, skin, feathers and a clawed foot clearly visible to the naked eye. Its 99-million-year-old feathers range from white and brown to dark grey in color, and the researchers have nicknamed the young enantiornithine 'Belone', after a Burmese name for the amber-hued Oriental skylark.
The find was reported by several of the same researchers who discovered a feathered theropod dinosaur tail preserved in amber last December. The structure of the dinosaur feathers suggested that it would be incapable of flight. On the other hand, an earlier find of enantiornithine wings in amber revealed a feather structure remarkably similar to flight feathers of modern birds.
In this specimen, scientists observed that while the baby enantiornithine already possessed a full set of flight feathers on its wings, the rest of the plumage was sparse and more similar to the theropod dinosaur feathers, which lack a well-defined central shaft, or rachis.
The presence of flight feathers on such a young bird is reinforcing the idea that enantiornithes hatched with the ability to fly, making them less dependent on parental care than most modern birds.
This independence came at a cost, however. The researchers point out that a slow growth rate made these ancient birds more vulnerable for a longer amount of time, as evidenced by the high number of juvenile enantiornithes found in the fossil record. (No juvenile fossil remains from any other bird lineage are known from the Cretaceous).
Where’s John Hammond?
You beat me to that comment
So it’s 5000ish years old.
“So it’s 5000ish years old.”
The last thing he heard was “That Ark has sailed.”
I like the jackalope next to the truck.
The extinct gekko Yantarogekko balticus in 44 million year old
baltic amber
While most people think of insects preserved in amber in very rare instances larger animals including small reptiles have been preserved.
That is funny and my first thought.
I would like to think we could bring back endangered species one day but totally understand the ramifications and unforeseen problems with doing so.
Thank you for posting this! Most informative!
Also, how sad for that little bird to drown in the tar from a tree!
I was especially impressed with the horrendous TEETH of this toothed bird. NOT! Looking at the artist’s rendering of how the actual bird may’ve looked, I see a very ordinary beak. No jaw bones. No gingiva. No structure to support teeth. Pure whimsy.
There seems to be a common idea that contemporary birds are “descendants” of the dinosaurs, however that could work. Actually, birds were already here when the dinosaurs ruled 65 million years ago.
We may be impressed at the age of the Earth, but it’s a newcomer compared to the age of the Milky Way galaxy. Metal-rich rocky planets in Goldilocks zones existed billions of years earlier than the Earth. Presuming life developed on one or more of them as it did on Earth, that means there were other civilizations at least as advanced as we are now, very, very long ago.
Consider for a moment how the pace of our technological advancement is continually accelerating, and then extend that into the future a couple of billion years or so. Consider the staggering implications for everything we see, and everything we are.
Interesting! Thanks for posting.
Sparrowasaurus
99 million years? Says WHO? The earth is only “thousands” of years old according to GOD and REAL science.
...when it was enveloped in sticky tree resin ...
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