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Rare amber preserves complete hatchling
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A Burmese amber which preserves the most complete hatchling that lived nearly 99 million years ago will be presented in Shanghai Natural History Museum in July.
This is the most complete known bird encased in amber during Cretaceous, which will help the scientists study how birds look like during that period.
The discovery was identified by an international team of scientists, including Xing Lida from China University of Geosciences, and Ryan McKellar of Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada. The finding was published in June.
On Saturday morning, the scientists gave a lecture in the museum, talking about how the amber was discovered and what we can learn through the specimen inside.
The bird, within the first week after its birth, was about 6 centimeters in length. The bird's move shows that it might be hunting or struggling to get out of the amber, Xing said.
McKellar said specimens found in amber in the past usually only had small fragments, but this time the specimen includes the bones, the skull, the skin, the feet and wing, which provides much more details than they ever had.
Thanks to the nature of amber, most of the information is well kept.
"Paleontologists often have to resort to guess or deduction to study extinguished ancient creatures," Xing said. "But this specimen shows directly how the creature looks like."
Over the past three years, Xing has been focusing on Burmese amber in the research of vertebrates living in Cretaceous.
"We aim to rebuild the vertebrate fauna in north Myanmar during Cretaceous," said Xing. "With the fauna rebuilt, we can compare it with the system found in China and other areas, so as to contribute to study which kind of animals were living in Asia or even the world during Cretaceous."
The amber will be exhibited in "Ways of Evolution" of the museum through July, though the exact starting day has not been decided. Further information will be released in the museum's official WeChat account “snhm01”.
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