Bee Hummingbird Sized Dinosaur
March 12, 2020 12:57 PM   Subscribe

Found: a two gram dinosaur that was the same size of Cuba's Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world.
posted by y2karl (14 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hey lil buddy
posted by Beardman at 1:02 PM on March 12, 2020


It's such a buddy!
posted by praemunire at 1:16 PM on March 12, 2020


Everyone is crying at the dread hypnotic flying
Of the bee of the bird of the dinosaur
posted by scruss at 1:30 PM on March 12, 2020 [8 favorites]


Remember how the book version of Jurassic Park talked about selling cloned dinosaurs as pets?
posted by tobascodagama at 1:42 PM on March 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Everyone is crying... & etc.

faint of buzz
posted by y2karl at 1:44 PM on March 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


The Human Cost of Amber: Fossils preserved in sap offer an astonishingly clear view of the distant past, but they come at a high price.
The amber mines are located in the Hukawng Valley of Kachin, Myanmar’s northernmost state (also known for other resources such as jade, gold, and wood). In local dialect, the remote jungle valley is known as the “Place of the Devil.” As Xing explained, the mines in Hukawng have existed for 100 years, but for decades they were relatively shallow. When ruby miners moved into the area from the south 10 years ago, they used their more sophisticated technology to dig deeper, and began to find new deposits of amber about 100 meters down.

War kept international investors out of the region—the area’s Kachin people have been fighting for independence from Myanmar since 1962—but during a cease-fire in the 1990s, a Canadian mining company started to work in the mines, and as scientists and jewelry makers recognized the size and age of the Burmese deposits, interest grew. Around 2010, China’s own amber mines were tapped out, and the production of Burmese amber grew. Today an estimated 10 tons of amber is taken out of Burmese mines every year.

Xing told the group that tens of thousands of people work in the Kachin mines, many of them teenagers (the mine shafts are so narrow that only slender people can fit into them, going two at a time), and that hundreds are killed every month when the mines flood or cave in. The area is also loaded with land mines from the ongoing conflict between the Kachin separatists and the Burmese army, so even on the surface, it’s easy for locals to get hurt.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:30 PM on March 12, 2020 [9 favorites]


Because of my employment at the Burke Museum, I receive anything dinosaur related in my news feeds of late. As soon as the tiny dinosaur came up, so did reports of the seamy side of Burmese amber. It has rapidly become the topic of debate among paleontologists worldwide with many calling for a total boycott of amber fossils. I thought of adding that aspect to the post but figured that someone else would bring it up promptly, so thank you for your addition to the conversation.
posted by y2karl at 2:43 PM on March 12, 2020 [9 favorites]


Conversely, I was considering posting this yesterday because wow what a beautiful fossil, and then I saw this article going around science twitter and it made me sad. All part of the conversation.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:46 PM on March 12, 2020




The moral and scientific aspects look very similar to the ones raised by archaeology, particularly palaeography: we already have a ridiculous amount of material sitting in museum drawers, but sourcing material from anything but a managed dig means you're losing its context and empowering a criminal market. Cough, cough, Museum of the Bible.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:58 PM on March 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


Bee Hummingbird with #2 pencil for scale: imagine a tiny feathered dinosaur sitting on the tip of your pinky (with room to spare).
posted by cenoxo at 6:37 PM on March 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


Well that's at least one good thing I read this week.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:52 PM on March 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


...selling cloned dinosaurs as pets?

How about just domesticating those tiny Madagascar lemurs? Tiny dinosaurs would be nice, but there is lower-hanging fruit out there.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:21 PM on March 13, 2020


Would be nice? Tiny dinosaurs ARE nice, says Sheldon.

Try not to criticize his shell du jour: it’s only a phase.
posted by cenoxo at 6:06 PM on March 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


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