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Ming Bai

This close view of the fossil snake's belly shows its well preserved vertebrae and ribs.

This hatchling snake captured in amber is described as a new species named Xiaophis myanmarensis.

Feathers from the wings of the baby bird show it was capable of flight right after hatching, unlike most modern birds.

Bones, skin and soft tissue are all encased in amber, providing scientists with unique information on an extinct group of ancient birds.

Preserved feathers show that the hatchling died during its first feather molt, indicating that it was entombed in amber within the first days or weeks of its life.

Amber miners who discovered the specimen thought that they had found a "strange" lizard's claw, until researchers realised that the foot belonged to a bird from the time of the dinosaurs.

The amber specimen HPG-15-1 (Hupoge Amber Museum, China) is quite large, about 9cm long, while the hatchling is small, about 6cm from snout to tail, including the head, cervical vertebrae, wings, and feet of an enantiornithine bird, as well as a considerable amount of associated soft tissue and integumentary structures. Despite its small size, the new specimen is the most complete fossil of its kind in Burmese amber to date. Paleontologists have lovingly nicknamed the specimen ‘Belone’, a local term in Myanmar for an amber colored bird, the Oriental skylark (Alauda gulgula). Once a resident of the humid, tropical environment in north Myanmar, ‘Belone’ fell into or was enveloped by resin from a conifer, such as cypress or araucaria, eventually becoming a piece of amber which has survived to this day. This amber was discovered in one of the world’s most famous amber localities, in the Hukawng Valley, Kachin State, northern Myanmar. This deposit dates back to the mid-Cretaceous, approximately 99 million years ago.