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In a discovery reminiscent of the movie Jurassic Park, researchers have found a piece of dinosaur tail encased inside a nugget of amber.

But real life has proven stranger than science fiction.

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While the movie featured genetic engineers extracting dinosaur DNA from mosquitos fossilized in sap turned to stone, the toonie-sized gemstone found in Myanmar actually contains a tiny tail segment from a 100-million-year-old dinosaur.

Scientists aren’t sure how the 38-mm-long piece of dino tail ended up in amber.

“It’s really strange,” said Scott Persons, a University of Alberta paleontologist, who was among a group of U of A scientists who joined an international team of researchers studying the find.

“Before this, it’s not something that would have ever occurred to you that something like this could happen,” Persons said. “It may have been that the animal was alive, got its tail stuck and maybe the animal had to do something dramatic like gnaw off its own tail. Or maybe it broke its tail off in the resin or maybe it got stuck there and died.”