World's smallest dinosaur's skull found encased in 99-million-year-old amber

Scientists have discovered the skull of the world's smallest-known dinosaur which was embeddedin 99-million-year-old amber.

The skull, measuring about half an inch long, belongs to a bird called Oculudentavis khaungraae that lived during the Cretaceous Period.

The research has been published in the journal Nature.

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The bird is tinier than the hummingbird and boasts many odd traits including jaws studded with numerous puny teeth.

None of the rest of the body was preserved, but the researchers estimated that Oculudentavis weighed approximately 28 grams and is 2 inches long.

(In photo: the skullof tiny bird Oculudentavis, whose name means eye-tooth-bird)

"It's probably the most beautifully preserved Mesozoic bird skull I've ever seen, and it's so weird," said palaeontologist Jingmai O'Connor of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, describing her reaction upon seeing the fossil.

The Mesozoic Era was the age of the dinosaurs.

Oculudentavis illustrates the almost-incomprehensible size difference among members of the dinosaur lineage.

"The size diversity hints at the amazing biology of dinosaurs, capable of sustaining such a diversity of forms," said O'Connor, who led the research.

Its eyes resembled those of owls, with the eye bones forming a cone, indicating acute vision, O'Connor said.

Oculudentavis appeared to be smaller than a bee hummingbird until now considered the world's littlest bird.

Oculudentavis shares few similarities, aside from size, with hummingbirds, which like all modern birds lack teeth and eat nectar.

Many Mesozoic birds had teeth, but Oculudentavis possessed 100 teeth which is the most in number. Unlike it, hummingbirds have long beaks.