amber inclusion archive

Feather in amber

Feathers in amber are not always to identify to the untrained eye and the pictures presented here are presented largely as "possible feathers". There are many instances whereby certain stress fractures or other living matter may have a shape or structure resembling a true feather. The picture below is of a surprisingly large piece of amber with what appears to be a large feather inside it, although this piece does not have other particularly revealing evidence of bird it does look very much like a bird feather in amber. Feathers in amber with eggs, birds and bird heads in amber are even more convincing and curious to most amber admirers. The picture below is of a small part of a very large feather in cretaceous amber taken using a microscope, a scale is provided on the image.
Feather in amber

In the next picture below the inclusions are still "possible feathers" but with a higher probability of being bird feathers because 1) They visually appear more like feathers than the example given in the above picture. 2) This piece of amber also contains bird eggs and full birds.

Feather in Burmite amber

The following picture is a feathered duck billed creature, CT scans show that these creatures had teeth and tiny feathers looking almost like scales until zoomed in on and full results will be uploaded here (OSS Open Source Science).

Feathers on a wing of bird in amber

Those interested in feathers will be able to find more feathers in pieces of amber with eggs , birds and bird heads in amber and indeed on many of the pages discussing aboreal volants.


“He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all the time.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World