A 99-million-year-old feathered dinosaur tail has been found frozen in time in an Asian marketplace, being sold as a piece of jewellery.
The perfectly preserved fragment, complete with feather, bone and soft tissue, was found by Chinese palaeontologist Dr Lida Xing as he hunted for fossils in a Myanmar market last year.
(Supplied/ Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM/ R.C. McKellar))
The tail, preserved in amber, is believed to have come from a young theropod, a carnivorous dinosaur in the same sub-species as the tyrannosaurus-rex, researchers from China University of Geosciences say.
It's the first time scientists have been able to clearly associate well-preserved feathers with a dinosaur.
(Supplied/ Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM/ R.C. McKellar))
"This is a new source of information that is worth researching and protecting as a fossil resource," said Dr Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.
It's hoped the find will help scientists understand the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers.
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