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[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/08/health/dinosaur-tail-trapped-in-amber-trnd/index.html]
Gekürztes C'n'P:
(CNN)The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur has been found entombed in amber, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists.
Xing Lida, a Chinese paleontologist found the specimen, the size of a dried apricot, at an amber market in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border.
The remarkable piece was destined to end up as a curiosity or piece of jewelry, with Burmese traders believing a plant fragment was trapped inside.
Fragments of dinosaur-era bird wings have been found preserved in amber before but this is the first time part of a mummified dinosaur skeleton has been discovered, McKellar said.
"It's a once in a lifetime find. The finest details are visible and in three dimensions."
The tail section belongs to a young coelurosaurian -- from the same group of dinosaurs as the predatory velociraptors and the tyrannosaurus.
The sparrow-sized creature could have danced in the palm of your hand.
The amber, which weighs 6.5 grams, contains bone fragments and feathers, adding to mounting fossil evidence that many dinosaurs sported primitive plumage rather than scales.
"The more we see these feathered dinosaurs and how widespread the feathers are, things like a scaly velociraptor seem less and less likely and they've become a lot more bird like in the overall view," he said.
Leider funzt die Jurassic Park Methode nicht:
McKellar said that soft tissue and decayed blood from the tail were found in the amber but no genetic material was preserved.
"Unfortunately, the Jurassic Park answer is still a 'no' -- this is firmly in the realm of science fiction," he said.
