An isolated barb from a vaned feather, trapped within a tangled mass of spider’s web in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution within this feather fragment suggests that the barb may have been gray or black. Image: Science/AAAS The notion of dinosaur specimens being preserved in amber might call to mind the blockbuster movie Jurassic Park, but feathers encased in amber 70 to 85 million years ago are giving researchers real insight into the evolution of these incredible structures in birds and non-avian dinosaurs. Digging through thousands of chunks of amber from a Late-Cretaceous site in Canada turned up specimens of 11 feathers or protofeathers (some of the most primitive feathers). The fossils show the progression from hair-like filament structures seen in protofeathers of non-avian dinosaurs, to the more complex branching feathers of modern birds. (Scroll down for more images.) “This discovery is a pretty significant find,” University of Alberta...