The weakly developed tail feathers also suggest that the owner of the Cretaceous tail falls somewhere lower down on the evolutionary tree of theropod dinosaurs, "perhaps a basal [primitive] maniraptoran," Xing suggests, referring to the subgroup of coelurosaurs that includes oviraptorosaurs and therizinosaurs. (See the oviraptorosaur that paleontologists have dubbed the "chicken from hell.")

Destined for Jewelry, but With a Silver Lining

The amber sample—formally called DIP-V-15103 and nicknamed "Eva" in honour of paleobotanist Eva Koppelhus, the wife of co-author Philip Currie—comes from a mine in the Hukawng Valley in Kachin state, northern Myanmar. Amber from this region most likely contains the world's largest variety of animal and plant life from the Cretaceous period.

It was one of more than a dozen amber samples with significant inclusions that were collected by Xing and his research team in 2015 at a well-known amber market in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state. Two of the other samples contained the dinosaur-era bird wings published earlier this summer.

The majority of Myanmar amber is used in jewelry and carvings, and the "Eva" sample had already been subject to shaping by the time it was collected by the researchers.