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posted by mrpg on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the valuable-for-science dept.

Prehistoric frogs in amber surface after 99 million years

Frogs trapped in amber for 99 million years are giving a glimpse of a lost world. The tiny creatures have been preserved in sticky tree resin since the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs.

The four fossils give a window into a world when frogs and toads were evolving in the rainforests. Amber from Myanmar, containing skin, scales, fur, feathers or even whole creatures, is regarded as a treasure trove by palaeontologists.

Dr Lida Xing of China University of Geosciences in Beijing said it was a "miracle" find. "In China, frogs, lizards and scorpions are called three treasures of amber," he told BBC News. "These amber fossils provide direct evidence that frogs inhabited wet tropical forests before the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous."

The fossil record of the earliest amphibians is sparse, which makes the discovery particularly valuable for science.

The earliest direct evidence of frogs in wet tropical forests from Cretaceous Burmese amber (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-26848-w) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:46AM (2 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:46AM (#694133)

    99 million years is a long time

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:53AM (1 child)

    by anubi (2828) on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:53AM (#694173) Journal

    I am impressed by the implied accuracy of the estimate. I would have expected something like "100 million years".

    Just the number "99" implies to me almost an accuracy of 1 percent, which I seriously question.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:38PM

      by stormwyrm (717) on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:38PM (#694263) Journal

      The full Nature article itself briefly explains how the amber samples were dated:

      These amber-preserved specimens were acquired in the area of Angbamo in Kachin Province of northern Myanmar in August 2015. Burmese amber derives from late Albian–Cenomanian deposits (approx. 105–95 mya25). Dating of zircons from the volcaniclastic matrix in these deposits provides an age of 98.8 ± 0.6 million years14.

      The Uranium-Lead dating [wikipedia.org] used to date those zircons (see note 14: Shi, G. et al. Age constraint on Burmese amber based on U–Pb dating of zircons. Cret. Res. 37, 155–163 (2012) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cretres.2012.03.014 [doi.org] ) can routinely get precisions in the 1% to 0.1% range. The 1% accuracy implied is thus not at all unreasonable or unheard of.

      --
      Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.