Photos: Mummified Bird Wings Preserved in Amber

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Picture preparation

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

One of the amber specimens sits suspended in a glycerin bath, a solution used to prepare the sample for photography at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.

Ancient claw

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

The Angel Wing specimen is seen here under a compound microscope. This view shows the pigment banding the feathers and the outline of a claw. [Read the Full Story on the Mummified Bird Feathers]

Reconstructed image

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

This rendering of the Angel Wing specimen was taken at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

Pale underside

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

The underside of the Angel Wing specimen has pale plumage in contrast to the dark brown plumage on the topside.

Ultraviolet light

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

The researchers used ultraviolet (UV) light to map the flow lines within the amber on the Angel Wing specimen.

Interlocking feathers

Mummified Bird Wings

(Image credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM | R.C. McKellar))

A compound microscope shows the flight-feather barbs and interlocking barbules in the Angel Wing specimen. [Read the Full Story on the Mummified Bird Feathers]

Laura Geggel
Laura Geggel
Editor

Laura is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. She also reports on general science, including paleontology. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.