"Mummified" duckbill dinosaur provides RARE clues (Excerpted Account)

MSNBC ^ | October 14 2002 | By Alan Boyle

[vannrox]

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The duckbill fossil, named Leonardo, is laid out for display at the Phillips County Museum in Montana. The numbers are keyed to information about areas of the 23-foot-long fossil. A separate portion of the tail can be seen in the background of the photo.

Dinosaur Mummy shows some skin!

Fossilized duckbill dinosaur provides rare clues about diet and appearance

By Alan Boyle
MSNBC

Oct. 14 — A mummified dinosaur from Montana has revealed how the creature looked and how it lived 77 million years ago — down to the texture of its skin and the contents of its stomach, scientists say.

NEWS OF THE DISCOVERY wowed scientists last week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual meeting in Norman, Okla., said Nate Murphy, curator of the Phillips County Museum in Malta, Mont. He and two colleagues presented a technical description of the duckbill dinosaur fossil, nicknamed Leonardo, at the gathering.

“People were making comments that this was revolutionary,” Murphy told MSNBC.com on Monday. “One scientist even went so far as to say this is like the Rosetta Stone of paleontology.”

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, helped archaeologists decipher the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Similarly, Leonardo could help paleontologists figure out the anatomy of a long-vanished species, Murphy said.

“We have a (fossilized) cadaver or a corpse, and we’re experiencing ‘CSI,’” he said, referring to the TV detective drama. “It’s a real crime investigation.”

Only three other mummified dinosaur fossils are known to exist, the researchers said.

Mummified fossils are by no means like the linen- wrapped Egyptian remains from mere thousands of years ago. Rather, the specimens have turned to minerals in such a way that they preserve the look of the skin and internal tissue. In the past, scientists have theorized that mummified dinosaur flesh was dried out before it became a fossil. But Murphy and his fellow researchers believe Leonardo took a different path to posterity.

“We think that it was buried in wet river sand around 77 million years ago, and much of the flesh was intact when fossilization started,” said Dave Trexler, paleontologist with Timescale Adventures. “The pollen from its stomach also shows that the environment was too wet for much desiccation to take place before burial.”

This site map of Leonardo at excavation during 2001 shows where erosion removed a section of the tail, the only part missing from the otherwise complete animal.

Geologist Mark Thompson of the Judith River Dinosaur Institute said “a very rare sequence of events was necessary for this type of preservation to occur. ... It is a once-in-a-lifetime find.”

Volunteer fossil hunter Dan Stephenson spotted the first exposed traces of the two-ton, 23-foot-long (7-meter- long) specimen in a sandstone deposit during an institute expedition in the summer of 2000. He dubbed the fossil Leonardo after observing the name “Leonard” carved in a sandstone rock, with the date 1916, near the site of the discovery.

Paleontologists say Leonardo was a brachylophosaurus — a type of duckbill dinosaur, or hadrosaur. The rock layer where the fossil was found has been dated back 77 million years, to the Late Cretaceous period, Murphy said.

An analysis of the fossilized bone structure led researchers to conclude that Leonardo was a subadult that died when it was about 3 or 4 years old. “It still had what we call the ‘cute factor,’” he said.

In a photo taken from video footage of the excavation, the left forelimb of Leonardo shows the polygonal, scaly appearance of the skin. A pencil is included in the picture for size comparison.

[vannrox]

Very exciting! Imagine! A mummified Dinosaur!

This is the second post. The initial post was non-excerpted by accident and I requested that it be deleted. Tis is in accordance with MSNBC - FR policy.

[martin_fierro]

Cool stuff. I wonder if they'll be able to tell from the skin sample whether the flesh was colored.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[EggsAckley]

wonder if they'll be able to tell from the skin sample whether the flesh was colored

There ya go...playing the race card.......

just kidding

[isthisnickcool]

...had a “very big, robust neck,” Murphy said, with what appears to be a gular pouch — a patch of loose skin hanging down from the beak.

Sounds like my first wife. Did it have a "fossilized" purse with a lot of my money in it next to it? If so, could I have it back? The money that is. Not any of the rest of the stuff....

[MineralMan]

Probabaly not. Skin color would be lost in the mineralization. This is not a mummy as we usually think of them. There is no organic material left.

[martin_fierro]

Oh, be quiet and stay over on Your Side Of The Hill. <|:)~

[pabianice]

Anyone seen Ted Kennedy lately...?

[EggsAckley]

Have you ever seen the sign on Pacheco Pass that says "Dinosaur Point?" Back in the sixties, I was in a Paleontology class that was digging for bones out there, before the reservoir went in, and one day a kid found a bit of dinosaur spine sticking out in a ravine. We turned it over to UC Berkeley, and they continued the dig. With what they could get out, they determined it to be a cross between the short necked and long necked varities of Plieseusaurus (sp). A new species. Berkeley named it after the kid who found it, "-thomas-ensis" or something like that. Then the lake drowned it.

[SteveH]

See also here.

[martin_fierro]

I've always said it must take fanatical dedication to swipe away at a sandy piece of hot, rocky desert with a paintbrush.

I'd much rather watch it from the comfort of my couch on the Discovery Channel -- with a cool drink in hand. <|:)~

[OldCorps]

Do you think bitchy ex wives are an extinct or endangered species?

[RightWhale]

“The pollen from its stomach also shows that the environment was too wet for much desiccation to take place before burial.”

Is everything fossilized, or is the pollen and maybe some other parts still made of organics?

[martin_fierro]

Have you ever seen the sign on Pacheco Pass that says "Dinosaur Point?" Back in the sixties, I was in a Paleontology class that was digging for bones out there, before the reservoir went in, and one day a kid found a bit of dinosaur spine sticking out in a ravine. We turned it over to UC Berkeley, and they continued the dig. With what they could get out, they determined it to be a cross between the short necked and long necked varities of Plieseusaurus (sp). A new species. Berkeley named it after the kid who found it, "-thomas-ensis" or something like that. Then the lake drowned it.

Possibly this one (see "Alzadasaurus colombiensis")?

[Bahbah]

Can't stop laughing over the fossilized purse.

[isthisnickcool]

Do you think bitchy ex wives are an extinct or endangered species

Only those that have been fed enough money. Can't get rid of them any other way.

[templar]

I wonder if they'll be able to tell from the skin sample whether the flesh was colored.

As opposed to transparent?

[11th Earl of Mar]

A mummified Dinosaur! This is the second post.

Good. The article is much different than I first thought.

When I saw the title of the first post ["Mumified Dinosaur Found With Skin"], I thought it was a Democratic Underground article on Strom Thurmond.

lol... No offense, Strom.

[johnny7]

It's not a Thurmond... it's a Byrd.

Thurmonds still reproduce... Byrds have forgotten how to do the act.

Plant-eater, slow-moving... the duckbill was a democrat... much like the Carnahan and the Torcelli species.

[11th Earl of Mar]

And don't forget the Clintonosaurus. It, too, had a very slippery skin.