Anatomy

Geology

Aerospace engineering

Evolutionary biology

Biology

Zoology

Cretaceous

Literature

Feather

Phalanx

Foot (prosody)

Engineering

Philosophy

Paleontology

Burmese

Plumage

Linguistics

Wing

Scientific Reports

Over the last three years, Burmese amber (~99 Ma, from Myanmar) has provided a series of immature enantiornithine skeletal remains preserved in varying developmental stages and degrees of completeness. These specimens have improved our knowledge based on compression fossils in Cretaceous sedimentary rocks, adding details of three-dimensional structure and soft tissues that are rarely preserved elsewhere. Here we describe a remarkably well-preserved foot, accompanied by part of the wing plumage. These body parts were likely dismembered, entering the resin due to predatory or scavenging behaviour by a larger animal. The new specimen preserves contour feathers on the pedal phalanges together with enigmatic scutellae scale filament (SSF) feathers on the foot, providing direct analogies to the plumage patterns observed in modern birds, and those cultivated through developmental manipulation studies. Ultimately, this connection may allow researchers to observe how filamentous dinosaur ‘protofeathers’ developed—testing theories using evolutionary holdovers in modern birds.

A fully feathered enantiornithine foot and wing fragment preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber