Fragments of the dinosaur's tail, which turned out to be 99 million years have been found entombed in amber. An unprecedented discovery has surprised scientists.

Chinese paleontologist Hing Lida found a sample on the amber market in Northern Myanmar near the Chinese border. Wonderful piece of amber was destined to go as a piece of jewelry to Burmese merchants. A fragment of the tail was inside the amber. "I realized that the content was vertebrates, probably predatory dinosaur, not herbivores," said Hing. "I wasn't sure (trader) really realized how important this pattern but it has not raised the price."

Findings that shed new light on how dinosaurs looked, published in the December issue of Current Biology. A paleontologist at the Royal Museum in Canada and co-author Ryan McKellar, said that he was amazed when the Hing for the first time showed him a piece of amber. Earlier in amber was found fragments of the wings of birds and dinosaurs, but for the first time there is preserved part of the mummified skeleton of a dinosaur, said McKellar.

The tail belongs to the young Raptor - from the same group of predatory dinosaurs as VelociRaptor and Tyrannosaurus. A creature the size of a Sparrow, which could fit in the palm of your hand.

Amber, who weighs 6.5 grams, contains fragments of bones and feathers, showing that many dinosaurs wore primitive feathers. McKellar said the creature had a whip-tail, like the tail of the mouse, but covered with contour feathers, similar to those which give shape and color for birds.

"The more we find pieces of these feathered dinosaurs and realize how widespread feathers, things like scaly VelociRaptor seems less and less likely." he said. The amber has preserved pigmentation of feathers, allowing scientists to estimate with some certainty how it looked. They were not scaly monsters. They were covered with feathers and cooed, not roared.
sections: Society, World News