On March 12, I wrote about the new Nature paper describing the fossil of Oculudentavis khaungraa, identified as a tiny (2-gram) dinosaur/bird found in Burmese amber. But the very next day I had to hedge the results after reading Darren Naish’s Tetrapod Zoology post, not only on humanitarian grounds (the amber used in the study may be “blood amber”, used to fund the military), but, most important for the science, because other paleontologists started doubting that this fossil was indeed that of a theropod. As Darren notes,

“. . .  a number of experts whose opinions I respect have expressed doubts about the claimed theropod status of the fossil discussed below and have argued that it is more likely a non-dinosaurian reptile, perhaps a drepanosaur or lepidosaur (and maybe even a lizard).”

The article below, translated from the Italian by Google (click on screenshot), was called by my attention…