Seen in this photo from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum is an astonishing 99-million-year-old dinosaur tail.
Thought to be from a small coelurosaur, it is the first ever found preserved in amber and includes soft tissue and feathers.
The moment frozen in time captured one of the earliest evolutionary splits between feathered dinosaurs and flying birds.
Micro-CT scans of the tail by paleontologist Lida Xing revealed delicate brown feathers in an open and flexible structure...
...an arrangement that was likely not for flight and suggests that they were for display or temperature regulation.
Before the significance of the find was realized, the Burmese amber was in the middle of being shaped into jewelry.
Researchers speculate that increased scientific access to Myanmar’s amber mines may eventually uncover a complete dinosaur...
20-30 million years ago, this single flea, photographed by entomologist George Poinar, Jr., was entombed in amber resin.
Trapped along with it was a possible ancestor of the Black Death that would later nearly wipe out humanity.
The pathogen was discovered in a droplet on the tip of the flea’s proboscis, indicating it may have just fed before dying.
Attempts to revive and study the bacteria have not been made, but its size and shape have linked it closely to the modern plague.
Poinar has theorized it was “infecting and possibly causing some extinction of animals long before any humans existed.”
He has also postulated that the rise of insects around the time of the dinosaurs’ demise may be more than coincidental...
Nicknamed “Angel,” this 100-million-year-old bird wing was photographed by paleontologist Ryan McKellar.
It is believed to be from enantiornithes, a separate branch of avian evolution that went extinct with most nonflying dinosaurs.
The tiny hummingbird-sized creature had features that were remarkably similar to those of modern birds...
...including the symmetrical arrangement of flight feathers that has changed little from the dinosaur-era to today.
Analysis of the amber indicates that a whole specimen may have been intact before it was cut to form an "Angel's Wings" pendant...
Also examined by Poinar is this bizarre 100-million-year-old insect that might be from a new branch on the tree of life.
Unlike the over 1 million species of insects categorized so far, the creature does not fit into one of the 31 existing orders.
“The strangest thing about this insect is that the head looked so much like the way aliens are often portrayed,” Poinar said.
“It’s really a tiny little thing, and it looks like something that came from outer space.”
Named Aethiocarenus burmanicus, its bulging eyes and the upside-down position of its triangular head is unlike any known insect.
Adding to the mystery was the discovery of “strange” glands in the creature’s neck that secreted an unknown toxic substance...
Poinar, however, doesn’t need to turn to outer space to find alien invaders, as evidenced by his photo of this amber fossil...
...capturing a parasitic nematode in a failed escape from an ancient planthopper that had become stuck in tree sap.
The example is only one of many in which parasitic invaders succumbed to the same amber entombment as their hosts.
Sensing death, the parasites often tried to make quick exits through the anus or by bursting out of body walls.
The gruesome strategy likely served the nematode well, as Poinar believes some may date back to around 1 billion years...