Story about dinosaur tail preserved in amber is a fossil by now

A photo of what appeared to be a dinosaur tail trapped in amber captured the attention of millions in September 2025 when it was shared on social media. An X post (archived) viewed over 12 million times within just a few days commented on the photo, saying, “its insane that we have an actual, honest to god dinosaur tail preserved in amber and its not breaking every headline ever.”

The photo had been shared online before. A Reddit thread (archived) sharing the photo of the amber-preserved dinosaur tail was liked over 5,000 times when it was posted in 2022.

The dinosaur tail preserved in amber is real. However, the reason it wasn’t “breaking every headline ever” in 2025 was because that particular discovery instead made headlines in 2016.

The tail was initially discovered at an amber market in Myitkyina, Myanmar, in 2015, according to a news release accompanying a study on the tail. Apparently, the tail was originally thought to be a plant inclusion and was destined to become amber jewelry, but Lida Xing, who went on to co-author the study, recognized its scientific importance and suggested that the Dexu Institute of Palaeontology in China buy it. Xing and several other co-authors published a paper on their findings from the tail in the amber in December 2016, making its existence publicly known.

The amber-preserved dinosaur tail made headlines after the study was published. News outlets that ran stories about it included the BBC, CNN, NPR, ABC, CNBC and PBS.

Most of the articles used different photos of the amber in which the tail was positioned at different angles. However, an Engadget article from December 2016 included the exact photo shared in the December X post.

The 2025 social media attention around the discovery could have been prompted, in part, by an IFLScience article published in September of that year. (At the bottom of that article is a note saying an earlier version of the story was published in August 2024.)

As for the feathered tail itself, the researchers believed it to most likely be from a juvenile Coelurosauria. Coelurosaurs were a family of dinosaurs believed to be the most bird-like. They stood on two feet and were often carnivores. Examples of coelurosaur dinosaurs include velociraptors and tyrannosauruses. Without the rest of the dinosaur’s skeleton, it was unclear the exact species of the dinosaur the tail belonged to, the Smithsonian Magazine wrote.

Smithsonian Magazine and the University of Bristol shared an artist’s illustration of what the small coelurosaur the tail belonged to may have looked like.