5 Strange Prehistoric Creatures Found Trapped In Amber [20:03]

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· Intro
0:00 · Amber fossilized tree resin is a
0:02 · remarkable substance that can give
0:04 · scientists a unique window into our
0:06 · planet's prehistory as anyone who has
0:08 · watched Jurassic Park will know Amber
0:10 · can preserve the bodies of tiny insects
0:12 · and other creatures for millions of
0:14 · years freezing these ancient animals in
0:17 · almost perfect condition for all this
0:19 · time after they became trapped in the
0:21 · sticky resin although extracting ancient
0:23 · DNA from such fossils remains impossible
0:26 · so we won't be getting any prehistoric
0:28 · theme parks just yet there have still
0:30 · been some absolutely mind-blowing recent
0:32 · amber discoveries from a dinosaur's
0:34 · fluffy tail to a 20 milliony old flea
0:37 · preserved with plague bacteria let's
0:39 · take a look at five prehistoric
0:41 · creatures found trapped in Amber firstly
· Gecko
0:44 · one particularly stunning amber fossil
0:46 · preserves the partial body of a
0:48 · prehistoric gecko this lizard was
0:50 · discovered in Russia in an Amber deposit
0:52 · that was formed between 54 and 34
0:55 · million years ago only the front part of
0:57 · the body is preserved but the entire
0:59 · head is intact as is most of the right
1:01 · for liim with only the tips of the
1:03 · fingers missing as preserved the gecko
1:05 · is just 15 mm long or about .6 in so
1:09 · this would have been a very tiny animal
1:11 · which makes sense since larger animals
1:14 · would be able to escape from the tree
1:15 · resin and so wouldn't end up getting
1:17 · preserved it's not certain if this was a
1:19 · fully grown individual when it became
1:21 · trapped however this gecko was
1:23 · recognized as belonging to a species
1:25 · that was new to science and so it was
1:27 · named yanto gecko balticus lots of very
1:30 · fine details of its Anatomy can be seen
1:33 · thanks to the Amber preservation
1:35 · including all of the tiny scales across
1:37 · its body and the fact that it lacks
1:39 · movable eyelids like most modern geckos
1:41 · do too its fingers were also very
1:44 · asymmetrical with digits one and two
1:46 · being much smaller and thinner than the
1:48 · others the details of the hand also
1:50 · reveal that yanto gcko had the adhesive
1:53 · system of modern geckos which would have
1:55 · allowed this prehistoric species to
1:57 · cling to Vertical surfaces it has the
1:59 · broad toe pads typical of geckos with
2:01 · this ability plus you can even see the
2:04 · layers of plate-like structures running
2:06 · down the tips of the toes which in
2:08 · modern geckos have many very tiny
2:09 · hair-like filaments all along them
2:11 · enabling the lizards to make use of vand
2:13 · deval's forces to stick to things so it
2:16 · seems that yanto gecko was a tree living
2:18 · gecko that clambered about on branches
2:20 · using it sticky toes to get about also
2:23 · explaining how it ended up becoming
2:24 · caught in tree resin yanto gecko
2:27 · therefore also shows us that climbing
2:28 · adaptations had evolved in the gecko
2:30 · lineage by at least 54 million years ago
2:33 · going by the older date for the Amber
2:35 · formation so these lizards have been
2:37 · capable climbers for a very long time
2:39 · indeed this prehistoric gecko also
2:42 · demonstrates how climatic conditions
2:43 · have shifted over time since at the time
2:46 · this reptile lived during the early
2:47 · eosine Epoch the Earth was a greenhouse
2:50 · World lacking permanent ice caps unlike
2:53 · today's modern Ice House world at this
2:55 · generally warmer time in Earth's history
2:58 · geckos clearly had a much wider
3:00 · distribution across the planet being
3:01 · found at much higher Northern latitudes
3:04 · considering this species was found in
3:06 · Northwestern Russia these areas
3:08 · therefore must have had very different
3:09 · ecosystems at this time including
3:11 · reptile species that today typically
3:13 · inhabit tropical and warm temperate
3:15 · environment so yanto gecko is a truly
3:18 · fantastic Amber Discovery showing some
3:20 · extraordinary details of this tiny
3:22 · little lizard and preserving a moment of
3:24 · prehistory for many millions of years
· Dinosaur's Tail
3:28 · our second fossil is the rather
3:30 · incredible discovery of a dinosaur's
3:32 · tail trapped in Amber dating back to
3:34 · around 99 million years ago during the
3:37 · Cretaceous Period this mindblowing find
3:40 · comes from the Amber deposits of Myanmar
3:42 · and the tail itself is absolutely
3:44 · covered in feathers further proving
3:47 · without much room for doubt that many
3:49 · dinosaurs were indeed feathered the tail
3:51 · is about 37 mm or almost 1.5 in long as
3:55 · preserved it most likely comes from some
3:57 · sort of small juvenile Mani Raptor
4:00 · dinosaur so it would be related to
4:01 · dinosaurs such as the Raptors
4:03 · oviraptorosaurs and ornithomimosaurs
4:06 · although its exact identity cannot be
4:07 · determined with much certainty as it is
4:10 · just a tail but it's definitely not a
4:12 · tail from a bird since it has too many
4:14 · vertebrae for any known prehistoric bird
4:16 · and the anatomy of the feathers
4:18 · themselves show that they were not
4:19 · flight feathers they instead look more
4:22 · like ornamental feathers as such
4:24 · whatever dinosaur this taale came from
4:26 · would not have been able to fly so these
4:28 · feathers were likely for displaying to
4:30 · others or to help insulate the fluffy
4:32 · little dinosaur the feathers themselves
4:34 · are preserved in extraordinary detail
4:36 · with all the individual tiny filaments
4:38 · visible notably the feathers do not have
4:41 · a well-developed central shaft known as
4:43 · a racus like in many modern feathers the
4:45 · fact that the feathers have many fine
4:47 · filaments branching off from the midline
4:49 · therefore shows that these barbs with
4:51 · their even smaller barbules evolved
4:53 · before the rakus helping us better
4:56 · understand the order in which the main
4:57 · features of the modern feather structure
4:59 · evolved incredibly some traces of
5:02 · possible color are preserved in the tail
5:04 · feathers too the feathers still retain
5:06 · some traces of their pigmentation and
5:08 · even through the Amber you can see that
5:10 · certain feathers are much darker than
5:12 · others it seems that this dinosaur
5:14 · probably had chestnut brown plumage
5:16 · running down the top surface of the tail
5:18 · while the underside was a paler color
5:20 · possibly Almost White this type of
5:22 · contrasting coloration is not surprising
5:24 · to find having a dark upper part of the
5:26 · body and a lighter Underside is called
5:28 · countershading and it's a type of
5:30 · cryptic coloration that helps to break
5:32 · up the outline of animals letting them
5:34 · remain unseen by predators and prey
5:36 · alike not only is there evidence of
5:38 · color left but the scientists who
5:40 · studied the specimen also found that
5:42 · trapped within the Amber there were
5:44 · traces of what might be decomposed
5:46 · remnants of the oxygen transporting
5:48 · protein hemoglobin and the iron storing
5:51 · protein fertin now of course this
5:54 · doesn't mean we're about to extract
5:55 · dinosaur DNA from the tail as those
5:58 · molecules will have long decayed but
6:00 · it's pretty stunning to think that we
6:01 · might have detected the traces of
6:03 · proteins from a dinosaur that lived
6:05 · almost 100 million years ago the way
6:08 · that the remaining muscles ligaments and
6:10 · bits of skin cling to the tailbones in
6:12 · this Amber specimen suggests that they
6:13 · might have undergone some level of
6:15 · desiccation before being preserved in
6:17 · Amber so it's possible that the juvenile
6:20 · dinosaur this taale belonged to had
6:21 · already died and begun to dry out before
6:24 · the tree resin encapsulated the severed
6:26 · tail alternatively it might have just
6:28 · been so small that when it got its tail
6:30 · stuck in the sticky resin it was unable
6:33 · to escape and died because of this it
6:35 · wouldn't have been able to shed its tail
6:37 · and regrow a new one like some living
6:39 · lizards so in this hypothetical
6:41 · situation the tail must have somehow
6:43 · been torn off although it was an
6:45 · unfortunate end for this tiny fluffy
6:47 · dinosaur it's another mindblowing and
6:50 · the discovery showing us how feathers
6:52 · evolved and even telling us what color
6:54 · this creature might have been next up
· Flea With Plague Bacteria??
6:57 · how about this as an idea for a future
6:59 · jurass Park film instead of extracting
7:01 · dinosaur DNA from an insect and Amber
7:04 · they accidentally extract Bubonic plague
7:06 · bacteria well it's not too far off from
7:09 · reality as in 2015 a paleontologist
7:11 · described a 20 milliony old flea trapped
7:14 · in Amber that appears to have this kind
7:16 · of bacteria still inside it this piece
7:18 · of Amber came from the Dominican
7:20 · Republic and it contains an extinct
7:22 · species of flea unrelated to most modern
7:25 · ones fossilized fleas are rare finds so
7:28 · scientists were already excited about
7:30 · its Discovery but upon examining it
7:32 · closer they realized there were some
7:34 · even tinier microorganisms on this
7:36 · creature looking at the rectum of the
7:38 · flea they saw clusters of bacteria
7:40 · attached to it that have shapes very
7:42 · much like the bacteria responsible for
7:44 · the plague a species called yenia pesus
7:48 · although it cannot be said with absolute
7:50 · certainty that these are definitely Yia
7:52 · bacteria they've got the right
7:54 · characteristics and they're in the right
7:56 · place since in modern fleas they're also
7:58 · found in the rectum not only that but
8:00 · there's also a dried droplet on the end
8:02 · of the prehistoric fleas mouth part that
8:04 · contains more of the bacteria so it
8:06 · seems the way they might have been
8:08 · transmitted was also very similar to
8:10 · Modern plague bacteria the discovery of
8:13 · possible plague bacteria in a flea
8:14 · that's at least 20 million years old is
8:16 · very interesting studies of the genetics
8:19 · of Yia pesus have shown that the strains
8:21 · of this bacteria that infect humans
8:23 · probably only evolved in the last 20 to
8:26 · 10,000 years so if the bacteria trapped
8:29 · in a Amber specimen really are a kind of
8:31 · Yia they likely represent an entirely
8:34 · extinct strain that initially evolved as
8:36 · parasites of rodents since they would
8:38 · have existed a very long time before the
8:40 · first humans arrived on the scene indeed
8:43 · other Amber specimens from the Dominican
8:45 · Republic do preserve hairs from
8:47 · prehistoric rodents so they are good
8:49 · contenders for being the host animals of
8:51 · this extinct flea and its Associated
8:53 · bacteria however the paleontologist who
8:56 · described this remarkable specimen is
8:58 · still hesitant to make too many
8:59 · assertive claims about this bacteria
9:02 · stating that it's impossible to say
9:03 · whether the bacteria were parasites of
9:05 · vertebrate animals such as rodents and
9:08 · were being vector by the flea or if they
9:10 · were simply a kind of symbiotic bacteria
9:12 · that lived within the flea itself and
9:14 · did not get past on two larger animals
9:17 · still the fact that the bacteria were
9:18 · also found on the mouth part of the flea
9:21 · does seem to suggest that they might be
9:22 · passed on to whatever the flea was
9:24 · feeding on it's another fascinating and
9:26 · very unusual Amber discovery that gives
9:28 · us a hit as to how this devastating
9:31 · pathogen responsible for wiping out
9:33 · around half of Europe's population
9:34 · during the 14th century might have
9:36 · evolved now please someone keep John
9:39 · Hammond away from it so far we've had
· Dinosaur Hatchling
9:41 · the tale of a dinosaur now let's look at
9:44 · an Amber specimen that preserves the
9:46 · head neck feet and wing of a dinosaur
9:49 · okay so technically it's a prehistoric
9:51 · bird but it's been well established for
9:52 · a while now that birds are living
9:54 · dinosaurs not just their descendants But
9:56 · fullon Dinosaurs anyway this is still a
9:59 · very ancient kind of bird dating to
10:01 · about 99 million years ago it comes from
10:04 · an Amber deposit in Myanmar like the
10:06 · dinosaur taale did too trapped inside
10:09 · this 3.4 in Long piece of Amber is the
10:11 · partial body of a tiny baby bird the
10:14 · right foot is preserved in immense
10:16 · detail being very obvious as it's close
10:18 · to the edge of the Amber it shows some
10:20 · astonishing details of all the tiny
10:22 · scale patterns down the toes as well as
10:24 · the small feathery bristles between the
10:26 · scales and the little claws a a partial
10:29 · Wing is also preserved along with some
10:31 · of the feathers and although it's
10:33 · difficult to see since it's positioned
10:35 · right in the middle of the Amber which
10:36 · obscures the view a bit there is a neck
10:39 · and head in here too the external ear
10:42 · opening and the eyes can be seen which
10:44 · project out from the sides of the head
10:45 · and are large and bulbous though it
10:47 · seems the eyelids are mostly closed with
10:49 · just a small slit open the researcher
10:52 · scanned the Amber specimen to enable
10:54 · them to see more clearly the details of
10:55 · the bones beneath the encased soft
10:57 · tissues revealing all the parts of the
11:00 · body that are present in this Amber tomb
11:02 · this bird belongs to a prehistoric
11:04 · lineage called the in antonines this is
11:07 · an entirely extinct group of birds that
11:09 · died out at the end of the Cretaceous
11:11 · Period 66 million years ago when all the
11:14 · other non-bird dinosaurs were also wiped
11:16 · out by the asteroid impact the in anthes
11:19 · would have looked fairly similar to many
11:21 · modern Birds but they still had teeth in
11:23 · their mouths and claws on their wings so
11:26 · studying the partial body of a baby in
11:28 · Anton with its soft tissue preserved
11:31 · revealed a lot of interesting things
11:33 · about these birds the bird inside the
11:35 · Amber was almost certainly a very young
11:37 · baby that had probably hatched from its
11:39 · egg just a few days two weeks prior to
11:42 · its death so the fact that it had Wing
11:44 · feathers were already well-developed and
11:46 · suited for flight is particularly
11:48 · interesting and supports the idea that
11:50 · when in antonines hatched they were very
11:53 · precocial animals and might even have
11:55 · been immediately capable of flying other
11:58 · feathers across this B baby Bird's body
12:00 · are frozen partway through the process
12:02 · of molting with the first feathers
12:04 · beginning to erupt from follicles on the
12:05 · neck and head and very sparse Feathering
12:08 · on the legs and belly so this has also
12:10 · helped scientists to better understand
12:12 · the timing of in anonine Bird's plumage
12:14 · development quite literally providing a
12:17 · frozen snapshot into the first few weeks
12:19 · of a prehistoric Bird's life amazingly
12:22 · evidence of color is also preserved in
12:24 · the feathers of this bird overall the
12:26 · feathers range from dark brown colors to
12:28 · lighter shades of brown gray and white
12:31 · so it seems to be a pretty standard kind
12:33 · of color scheme for a juvenile bird that
12:35 · would have helped to keep it hidden from
12:37 · predators the body of this hatchling
12:39 · most likely became preserved in this
12:41 · fashion after it was stuck in sticky
12:43 · tree resin and became partially embedded
12:45 · with bits of the bird that were exposed
12:47 · then getting scavenged and torn off
12:49 · explaining why some parts of the body
12:51 · are missing then more resin flows must
12:54 · have covered the remaining carcass fully
12:56 · encapsulating the poor Bird's body this
12:59 · baby in antonine specimen truly is
13:01 · another spectacular find giving us a
13:04 · glimpse into the early life and
13:05 · appearance of a birds that lived almost
13:08 · 100 million years ago finally we come to
· A Dinosaur's Head?? (Or not)
13:11 · the most controversial of the Amber
13:13 · specimens on this list in 2020
13:16 · paleontologists announced to the world
13:18 · that they discovered the Holy Grail of
13:20 · dinosaur fossils a tiny dinosaur's head
13:23 · very clearly and perfectly preserved in
13:26 · 99 million-year-old Amber from Myanmar
13:29 · they named this new species of
13:30 · hummingbird sized apparent dinosaur
13:33 · oculudentavis KRA looking at its
13:36 · anatomical features they found that it
13:38 · was a very primitive bird even more so
13:41 · than the in antonines we just looked at
13:43 · the paleontologist therefore claimed
13:45 · that we had discovered the smallest
13:47 · known dinosaur to have lived during the
13:49 · mesic era as oculu Davis had a skull
13:52 · just 1.73 cm long or about 0.7 in making
13:58 · it almost as tiny as the bee hummingbird
14:01 · the smallest living bird and therefore
14:03 · the smallest dinosaur we know of however
14:06 · almost immediately after the paper
14:08 · describing this discovery was published
14:10 · doubts began to circulate online other
14:12 · scientists noticed some suspicious
14:14 · similarities to the anatomy of lizards
14:17 · and suggested that the paleontologists
14:19 · had actually misidentified oculudentavis
14:22 · as a bird but more seriously than this
14:25 · the widespread media attention garnered
14:27 · by this find brought with it renewed
14:29 · criticism directed at the study of Amber
14:32 · fossils from Myanmar we've covered a few
14:35 · such fossils in this video the dinosaur
14:37 · taale baby bird and oculudentavis were
14:40 · all excavated from mines in catchin
14:42 · state in Northern Myanmar so it's clear
14:45 · that these fossils are incredibly
14:46 · scientifically important however many
14:49 · paleontologists have voiced their
14:51 · concerns about continuing to purchase
14:53 · and study Amber mined in the country as
14:56 · there were claims that the sale of these
14:58 · fossils was fun funding the violence in
15:00 · catchin state in addition the conditions
15:03 · in the mines are incredibly dangerous
15:05 · and underage workers were reportedly
15:07 · being used to dig out the Amber in many
15:09 · cases the publication of oculudentavis
15:12 · resulted in a great deal of discourse
15:14 · within the paleontological community and
15:16 · the Society of vertebrate paleontology
15:18 · in April of 2020 therefore issued a
15:21 · statement discouraging scientists from
15:23 · purchasing or studying Amber from the
15:25 · country obtained after June 2017 when
15:28 · the Myanmar military took over the area
15:31 · other paleontologists criticized this
15:32 · decision though arguing that the sale of
15:34 · Amber fossils contributed very little to
15:37 · funding the conflict and insisting that
15:39 · without obtaining such specimens they
15:41 · would end up being used for carvings or
15:43 · to make jewelry forever lost to science
15:47 · however the Society of vertebrate
15:48 · paleontology later issued another letter
15:51 · in June of 2021 suggesting another
15:54 · temporary ban on publishing any Myanmar
15:56 · Amber fossils obtained after January
15:58 · 2021 due to the military coup on the 1st
16:01 · of February that year and the ongoing
16:03 · Civil War it's a complex issue and a lot
16:05 · of paleontologists clearly feel very
16:07 · strongly about it and so I thought it
16:09 · was important to at least explain a
16:11 · little bit of the context of these Amber
16:13 · fossils okulu Davis itself was obtained
16:16 · by scientists prior to the 2017 conflict
16:20 · however the other controversy
16:21 · surrounding the specimen that of its
16:24 · true identity resulted in the paper
16:26 · describing it to be retracted from the
16:28 · scientific journal it was published in
16:31 · as it turns out oculu Davis was in fact
16:33 · a lizard not a tiny bird a second
16:37 · specimen was published in 2021 by a
16:39 · different team of paleontologists
16:41 · proving that this creature was a lizard
16:43 · this fossil had come from the same mine
16:45 · in Myanmar again purchased before 2017
16:48 · and it was classified as a new species
16:51 · of oculu Davis which was named
16:53 · oculudentavis naer the specimen was a
16:56 · bit more complete than the first one
16:57 · preserving the next and some of the body
17:00 · as well as more soft tissue structures
17:02 · including scales the paleontologists who
17:05 · described this other specimen explained
17:07 · how the proportions of the skull of
17:08 · oculu Davis do indeed look weirdly
17:11 · birdlike with a long tapering snout and
17:14 · big eyes but that upon examining the
17:16 · more detailed features of the skull
17:18 · Anatomy it becomes quite clear that it
17:20 · resembles a lizard far more than a bird
17:23 · okulu Dent haris is still a pretty
17:25 · bizarre lizard however since it
17:27 · convergently evolved very bird-like
17:29 · proportions it was presumably a tree
17:32 · climber since it ended up trapped in
17:34 · tree resin and it might have used its
17:36 · large eyes and long tapering snout to
17:38 · spot and quickly snap at small fast
17:41 · moving insects so oculudentavis is
17:44 · another interesting if controversial
17:47 · Amber Discovery the publication of this
17:49 · animal highlighted some major ugly
17:51 · truths about the human cost of fossil
17:54 · excavation and whatever you think of the
17:56 · decision to Halt the study of more
17:58 · recently extract Ed Amber specimens from
17:59 · Myanmar it's an important discussion in
18:02 · the science of
18:03 · paleontology so there are five examples
· Outro
18:06 · of prehistoric animals found trapped in
18:09 · Amber discoveries such as these really
18:11 · are some of the most fascinating types
18:13 · of fossils that can be uncovered
18:15 · preserving animals Frozen in a moment in
18:17 · time for millions and millions of years
18:20 · given how extraordinary some of the
18:22 · finds featured in this video already are
18:25 · it's conceivable that it's now just a
18:26 · matter of waiting until something like a
18:29 · complete non-bird dinosaur head ends up
18:31 · being found in a piece of Amber that
18:34 · would be unbelievably exciting and could
18:36 · provide us with so much information
18:38 · about the life appearance of these
18:40 · extinct beasts who would need a real
18:42 · life Jurassic Park if we had that okay
18:45 · so maybe I would still want to go to
18:46 · Jurassic Park anyway before I end this
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