He said amber gave people a chance to learn about small vertebrates in the dinosaur era. Fortunately, non-bird dinosaurs and birds were found in these tiny vertebrate records. This discovery highlights the potential of amber sediments to reveal the smallest vertebrate, which is of great significance to understand the evolution of dinosaurs and ancient birds, especially the morphological evolution of miniaturized animals. The amber fossils discovered this time came from Hugang Valley in Kachin State in northern Myanmar. Geologists believe that amber in Hugang Valley was formed 654.38 billion years ago (about 99 million years ago), belonging to the middle Cretaceous (the earliest in the late Cretaceous). The specimen of this study is a complete animal skull wrapped in amber. The first challenge of this study is how to obtain complete high-resolution 3D information of the skull surrounded by amber, fur and impurities without loss.
Xing Lida first saw a picture of Chen Guangfa, curator of the Amber Pavilion Museum in Tengchong, Yunnan. He thinks it looks like a bird's head, but it is too small, smaller than a hummingbird. ? At present, we regard it as a bird or a dinosaur, which is the most likely conclusion based on the characteristics of the skull, probably 14 mm? Li Gang, a researcher at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, finally obtained the high-resolution and high-contrast 3D structure of the skull hidden inside amber. ? This is the strangest fossil I have had the honor to study. ? Zou Jingmei, a foreign researcher at the Institute of vertebrate paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. But among vertebrates, only birds have sharp beaks and huge eyes at the same time, so scholars classify this animal as birds. Because the morphological characteristics of this specimen are different from all other birds, scholars have established a new genus and species-Kuanya tooth bird, in order to pay tribute to Ms. Kuanya, a Burmese amber collector who first discovered and collected this specimen.
It is understood that the smallest existing bird is a hummingbird, and the smallest hummingbird is a hummingbird, weighing about 1.95g and 5.5cm long. Judging from the skull size, the eye-toothed bird is shorter than the hummingbird. It is the smallest ancient bird discovered so far and the smallest dinosaur in history. About 6,543.8 billion years ago, the eye-toothed bird lived in a humid tropical environment in northern Myanmar. Although the eye-toothed bird is small, it has more teeth than all other ancient birds. All the teeth add up to about 100. This is also the reason why scholars named it the eye-toothed bird. It is a carnivore. Another special feature of the toothed bird is its eyes, which are about 4 mm in diameter. Toothed birds have curved cheekbones and eyes protruding from the side of their heads. This visual system has never been found in living animals. In addition, the opening of the eye bone indicates that the activity pattern of the eye tooth bird is daytime. In a word, the size and shape of the eye-toothed bird show a new body structure and the ecology it represents. This discovery highlights the potential of amber deposits to reveal the smallest vertebrates. However, there are still some uncertainties in the classification of the eye-toothed bird, because it only has a head. Scholars will continue to search in Mingbo, hoping to find a more complete individual in the future and uncover all the secrets of the toothed bird.