Now this is something special!
This a beautiful piece of amber with a feather from the late Cretaceous of Myanmar! The feathers shows fantastic preservation, with the delicate barbs and barbules on full display and measures about 4.5 mm! The amber is a wonderful citrine color with great clarity! The amber's dimensions measure 9.2 x 5.5 x 3.2 mm and weighs .12 grams! It comes in a floating frame with a stand, blown up pictures of the inclusions, and detailed information for easy transport and a beautiful display!
Is it a dinosaur feather? Technically, yes in the same way that all feathers are dinosaur feathers because all birds are a type of dinosaur.
Is it from a dinosaur that ISN'T a bird? This one is a little trickier for a lot of reasons. While the feather is more primitive in comparison to modern feathers, as one would expect from a dinosaur feather, one would also expect that on very early birds that had just split to form their own group, birds. Early birds still had many dinosaur characteristics including tails, teeth, and claws on their wings and there is still a ton of debate as to where to draw the line between true bird and non-bird dinosaur (Pity the poor souls studying human evolution with this problem!). Add to that the difficulties in differentiating the morphology between different species and their feathers when you rarely ever find feathers attached to the actual animals, and this question is more or less impossible to answer one way or another.
So what can you say it is? It is a feather from a very important time in paleontology where birds where fully differentiating themselves from other dinosaurs and you could justifiably call it either. Primitive bird or very bird like dinosaur.
Amber is petrified tree resin (not sap, resin is much thicker). It forms when trees secrete resin, and the resin is quickly washed away by water and deposited in a lake where it is covered by sediment (if the resin isn’t washed away it decomposes or gets eaten). Along the way, small particles of dust, bits of plant material, and even small animals like insects and lizards can become trapped in the resin which hardens and preserves whatever is trapped within (aka inclusions). Myanmar amber, also known as Burmite, is world renowned gem quality amber known for excellent inclusions of insects, plants, and even small vertebrates! The preservation in amber can be so good it inspired a major portion of Jurassic Park, where blood sucking insects trapped in amber provided the DNA needed to clone dinosaurs! While the science of cloning dinosaurs from amber is, for better or worse, not a reality the pristine fossils of small animals that are rarely fossilized in any other way is very real!
Any vertebrate remains in amber are among the rarest and most sought after of fossils! This is a truly museum quality piece representing one of the most iconic debates in all of paleontology, the evolution of true birds from other dinosaurs!
Fake Amber is a plague on the fossil market, this piece has been tested to guarantee authenticity!
I do combined shipping upon request.
All my items come with a Certificate of Authenticity!
Inclusions: Feather
Size: 9.2 x 5.5 x 3.2 mm and weighs .12 grams, 4.5 mm (feather)
Clarity: Great
Color: Citrine
Found: Hukawng Valley, Myanmar
Age: 99 million years old
Alteration: polished