The nickname for these flattish ambers comes from the discovery of the pancake bird in amber made by the Chinese paleontologist Xing Lida. There are as we explain in our tetrapod research section many different types of amber and amber preservation and whilst we strive to find fully 3 dimensional fossils in clean amber it is of course extremely rare and difficult to find such fossils. When obtaining amber from shallow pit mines, redeposited ambers and from ambers that come in discs then the liklihood is that will be a flatter more cloudy amber and although there are some features present that enable us to establish that bird remnants are present it lacks the aesthetics and information potential of the rarer 3d specimens that usually come from hollows amber.
another example of pancake bird amber
the same piece shown from reverse showing the bones under the feathers

• To view photos of a small volant CLICK HERE
• To view micro-CT data on a small volant CLICK HERE
• To view photos of "scaly" volant CLICK HERE
• To view micro-CT data on scaly volant CLICK HERE
• Nano-microscopy is in progress and can be requested.
• full hi resolution macro new large pterosaur in amber family