Discovery of the Day: Dinosaur Tail Preserved in Amber Found; We Learned Nothing From Jurassic Park
If there’s one thing we know about reviving dinosaurs for a theme park, it’s that it all starts with something encased in amber.
Dr. John Hammond in the film Jurassic Park resurrects the dinosaurs with a sample of blood from a mosquito. Who knows what he could do with this: A 99-year-old feathered dinosaur tail, which was recently discovered in a Myanmar market.
The amber is “roughly the size of an apricot” and “captures one of the Earliest moments of differentiation between the feathers of birds of flight and the feathers of dinosaurs.” Though, because of these feathers, the dinosaur was probably unable to fly. This means scientists could actually see the color of the tail, which was “described as chestnut brown with a pale or white underside.”
Of course, up until now, we had thought that discovering something in amber was the first step toward opening a theme park of dinosaurs and getting your grandchildren attacked by a velociraptor or something. But we do we know, we just saw Jurassic Park. It’s not like that makes you an expert in dino attacks and how to prevent them.
Like many of these types of amber, this one was actually meant to be sold as jewelry. This was just one of two dozen purchased from a Myanmar market. Lisa Xing of the China University of Geoscience, who led the research, told National Geographic that because conflicts between the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Army are “nearing end,” the Hukawng Valley, where these ambers are found, will open up and more discoveries can be made.
"Maybe we can find a complete dinosaur.” he said.
And all we can do is watch in horror as this paleontologist casually begins a Jurassic Park scenario that we’re all destined to become wrapped up in.
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