A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.008

	A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber
	Xing, LD; McKellar, RC; Xu, X; Li, G; Bai, M; Persons, WS; Miyashita, T; Benton, MJ; Zhang, JP; Wolfe, AP
刊名	CURRENT BIOLOGY
	2016
卷号	26 期号:24 页码:3352-3360
DOI	10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.008
英文摘要	In the two decades since the discovery of feathered dinosaurs [1-3], the range of plumage known from non-avialan theropods has expanded significantly, confirming several features predicted by developmentally informed models of feather evolution [4-10]. However, three-dimensional feather morphology and evolutionary patterns remain difficult to interpret, due to compression in sedimentary rocks [9, 11]. Recent discoveries in Cretaceous amber from Canada, France, Japan, Lebanon, Myanmar, and the United States [12-18] reveal much finer levels of structural detail, but taxonomic placement is uncertain because plumage is rarely associated with identifiable skeletal material [14]. Here we describe the feathered tail of a non-avialan theropod preserved in mid-Cretaceous (similar to 99 Ma) amber from Kachin State, Myanmar [17], with plumage structure that directly informs the evolutionary developmental pathway of feathers. This specimen provides an opportunity to document pristine feathers in direct association with a putative juvenile coelurosaur, preserving fine morphological details, including the spatial arrangement of follicles and feathers on the body, and micrometer-scale features of the plumage. Many feathers exhibit a short, slender rachis with alternating barbs and a uniform series of contiguous barbules, supporting the developmental hypothesis that barbs already possessed barbules when they fused to form the rachis [19]. Beneath the feathers, carbonized soft tissues offer a glimpse of preservational potential and history for the inclusion; abundant Fe2+ suggests that vestiges of primary hemoglobin and ferritin remain trapped within the tail. The new finding highlights the unique preservation potential of amber for understanding the morphology and evolution of coelurosaurian integumentary structures.
语种	英语
WOS记录号	WOS:000390666200029
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.ihep.ac.cn/handle/311005/260410]
专题	中国科学院高能物理研究所
作者单位	中国科学院高能物理研究所
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Xing, LD,McKellar, RC,Xu, X,et al. A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber[J]. CURRENT BIOLOGY,2016,26(24):3352-3360.
APA	Xing, LD.,McKellar, RC.,Xu, X.,Li, G.,Bai, M.,...&易栖如.(2016).A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber.CURRENT BIOLOGY,26(24),3352-3360.
MLA	Xing, LD,et al."A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber".CURRENT BIOLOGY 26.24(2016):3352-3360.