An early synapsid with extensive soft tissue preservation. At the risk of seeming like someone obsessed with soft tissues and life appearance (read on and you’ll get what I’m saying), high on my list is the discovery of an early synapsid – a stem-mammal – that provides us with good information on integument. It looks likely at the moment that hair, whiskers and so on evolved in cynodonts prior to the origin of mammals (or mammaliaforms if you prefer), but were these features present any earlier than this?-
A little pterosaur in amber. The idea that we might discover intact Mesozoic animals preserved in amber once seemed like a pipe dream. But no more: we now have large numbers of Cretaceous lizards in amber, a partial tail from a small non-bird theropod, and assorted archaic birds, including the better part of a baby enantiornithine.-
More of the wish list at the link.
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