The Most Incredible Science Events Of 2016

The Discovery Of An Intact Feather-Covered Dinosaur Tail

For decades, paleontologists and biologists have speculated that dinosaurs might be more closely related to modern birds than to reptiles, which has long been the prevailing theory. A further version of this theory even speculates that dinosaurs might have been covered in feathers, but no evidence had been found - until 2016. In 2016, paleontologist Lida Xing from the China University of Geoscience in Beijing discovered an intact dinosaur tail inside a piece of amber. The tail was covered in feathers and belonged to a small dinosaur named coelurosaurus. Already, the find is shaking up the dinosaur world, leading more and more paleontologists to confirm the dinosaur-bird connection.