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Yes, freeze-dried fossils found in Siberia still have flesh, even fur, on them. The bones, skin and armour of this nodosaur found offshore in Alberta, Canada, are beautifully preserved. |
Since the dawn of paleontology, scientists have struggled to confirm what dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures may have looked like when they were alive. Now, a team at Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta, Canada has brought us closer than ever to understanding our massive planetary ancestors. They discovered a dinosaur fossil that has guts, armor, and even some skin intact. In fact, it is so well-preserved; some have dubbed it a “dinosaur mummy.”
A Giant Accident
The discovery of the dino-mummy was purely accidental. On an otherwise-average afternoon in 2011 at Alberta’s Millennium Mine, heavy-equipment operator Shawn Funk was manning an excavator when he hit something hard. Funk was used to striking minerals or old marine fossils, but this was different.
Over 7,000 man-hours later, the discovery now lies in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. It’s an incredibly well-preserved armored herbivore called a nodosaur (a close relative of ankylosaurs, those spiky armored low-riding lizards with a mace-like tail) that lived 110 million years ago. A team carved through a 15,000-pound rock to dig out the dinosaur’s body, from its snout to its hips.
By the way, those 7,000 man-hours we mentioned? That was all one man: Royal Tyrrell Museum technician Mark Mitchell. Over the course of six years, he painstakingly chipped away the stone, spending eight months on the skull alone. But it wasn’t until after he was finished that he learned his work would be immortalized in the name of the creature.
Credit: Discovery
Picture Credit : Google
