Nichet1122 Posted May 5, 2021 Share Posted May 5, 2021 I collected burmese amber. Surprisingly it had dinosaur feather. But I'm worried if this burmese amber is real. How to identify real amber? I heard real thing floats in salt water, after doing that, it really did. Is there any other way to identify real one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randyw Posted May 5, 2021 Share Posted May 5, 2021 Unfortunately copal can also float in a salt water solution. The easiest test of true amber is to shine a u.v. Light on it. It will be fluorescent if it is real amber. The next test is a hot needle test. A hot needle won’t penetrate amber but will sink into copal and many amber substitutes. Also amber is electrostatic rub the amber on a cloth for a minute or so then put a piece of hair near it. The hair should be attracted to it. are you sure it’s dinosaur feather? It looks more avian to me. But I haven’t really studied dinosaur vs avian feathers a super lot so I could easily be wrong... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kikokuryu Posted May 6, 2021 Share Posted May 6, 2021 On 5/4/2021 at 6:52 PM, Nichet1122 said: Is there any other way to identify real one? Burmite is one of the most common and inexpensive amber on the market so unless there is something to doubt the provenance, it's likely real given how cluttered the inclusions within the amber is. The only caveat to Burmite is the ethical controversy surrounding it, but it is a legit source of really good Mesozoic amber. Feathers and hair-like feathers or filaments found in Burmite isn't super rare so you see it frequently sold at any given time, so there isn't a reason to doubt it's legitimacy based on that. On 5/4/2021 at 9:17 PM, Randyw said: are you sure it’s dinosaur feather? It looks more avian to me. I don't think you can distinguish between non-avian and avian considering they are the same thing. A lot of animals living in that region would have been feathered. There is more primitive hair like filaments as well that are possibly more likely to be non-avian, not to be confused with a probably plant material that looks like a ball of hair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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