The duck-billed dinosaurs have been giving up their secrets lately. Just yesterday researchers revealed new details of how hadrosaurs chewed their food, using a set of teeth that look like a “cranial cuisinart.” Today, paleontologists have put the hadrosaur’s skin on display, thanks to a “mummified” creature that shows the shape of its soft tissue and cell-like structures.
Such a discovery was possible because the dinosaur’s skin fossilized before bacteria had a chance to eat up the tissue. It is “absolutely amazing to be able to identify organic molecules from soft tissue that belonged to a beast that died over 66 million years ago…. This is the closest you’re going to get to patting the animal” [National Geographic News], says lead researcher Phillip Manning.
For the study, which will be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers used advanced imaging techniques to get under the hadrosaur’s skin. A study of the cell structures show that, like modern-day crocodiles and birds, the skin was made up of two layers: a surface epidermis against a deeper dermis layer made up of dense connective tissue. Although that finding is what might have been expected based on the presumed lineage of the modern animals, Dr Manning said it is “clean science” [BBC News] that further supports the theory that dinosaurs left behind some descendants.
The fossil of the hippo-sized creature was discovered in 1999 by a teenager digging in his family’s North Dakota property. The dinosaur, approximately 7.5 meters (25 feet) long, apparently died on the banks of a sandy channel, perhaps near the bend of a river, where its body was rapidly buried under accumulating sediment. The waterlogged soil entombed it in a mineral-rich soup before the body could decay much, thus ensuring highly detailed preservation [Scientific American].
Related Content:
80beats: Duck-Billed Dinosaur’s Shifting Teeth Were Like a “Cranial Cuisinart”
80beats: How Dinosaur Feet Evolved Into Bird Wings: New Fossil Provides Clues
80beats: To Attract Mates, This Dino May Have Shaken a Tail Feather
80beats: Stay-at-Home Dinosaur Dads May Have Hatched Eggs and Cared for Young
Image: P. Manning
July 1st, 2009 at 10:09 am
But does it taste like chicken?
July 1st, 2009 at 10:21 am
Now this is cool. I am wondering if this Hadrosaur mummy has any unfossilized organic material left in it, like that T-rex fossil that somebody cracked open and found pliable tissue.
July 1st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Before watching a documentary on dinosaur mummies I didn’t realize that soft tissues of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals could possibly be fossilized. Even the internal organs of a dinosaur were preserved in some very special cases. Kids working on science projects relating to paleontology need to ponder what conditions need to be present during the decomposition process to allow soft tissues to survive.
July 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The creationista are going to be all over this one.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
66 million years pfft silly scientist needs to read the bible or he will go to hell! every christian knows the earth is only 6k years old. i bet this monkey’s uncle thinks the world isn’t flat and that the earth revolves around the sun.
July 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I think there is a tiny misunderstanding. Not the world was created 6k years ago, but the forefathers of the creationists were created 6k years ago to make live difficult thereafter for the rest of humankind.