Dinosaur-age chick preserved in amber

Burmese amber has long attracted scientists not only for its beauty, but also for what was contained inside it: many insects, and sometimes even geckos and chameleons, got into the hardening drops of resin, which later became amber. But a recent find, perhaps, would have won the “Gift to Scientists” championship by a huge margin: in amber, a real chick was found, about 99 million years old!

Beauty inside

Amber preserves well the body of the being inside the creature. Therefore, now researchers can’t get enough: the frozen prehistoric resin allowed them to see with their own eyes what the chick of an ancient extinct species of jagged birds called Enantiornithes, or enantiornis birds looks like. This species died out along with dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period (from 145 million to 65.5 million years ago). The 9-centimeter sample retained most of the body with a length of only 6 cm: head, cervical spine, wings and tail.

Photo: Lida Xing

Of course, parts of the ancient birds fell into the resin before. But usually these were small fragments, now researchers were able to see what the story had hidden from them before: ear holes, eye lid and skin on the legs. The most visible and brightest part of the body is the clawed paw. In addition, feathers are not preserved in fossils, but leave only prints.

The chick had its first molt when it fell into sticky wood sap. This is evidenced by the light plumage on his body. But the wings contain a complete set of flying feathers, which indicates a great independence of this species of birds from a very early age.

Fly like a bird

Little is known about Enantiornithes birds, and what is known raises more questions than answers. Even their name itself translates as "the opposite of birds" due to the fact that their structure is very different from modern birds. Scientists are still wondering how they could fly with such a structure of wings equipped with claws, tail and shoulder. At the same time, the plumage was minimal on the body itself, and the beak strengthened a number of sharp teeth.

Although amber perfectly preserved the chick, it did not work to “pull” the DNA from it, so people will not succeed in creating their Jurassic (or Cretaceous) Park. But with the help of a special scan and 3D reconstruction, the researchers were able to simulate the appearance of the bird.