NEWS Dinosaur 'mummy' still holds part of last meal
Peggy
I suppose it wasn't a Big Mac... ;)
Peggy
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/21/1034561446286.html
Dinosaur 'mummy' still holds part of last meal
October 22 2002
Move over, Ice Man. Scientists have found a 77-million-year-old dinosaur so
well preserved
that they're calling it a "mummy."
Most of the leathery skin on this creature, discovered two summers ago in
Montana, is
intact, though turned to mineral. Its throat and shoulder muscle are still
there. Its face retains
traces of its nail-like beak. Its discoverers even say it contains the
remnants of its last meal,
a half-digested mass of plant material.
"Once in a blue moon we have an opportunity to get greater insight into life's
prehistory,"
says Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology at the Phillips County Museum in
Malta, Mont.,
where the fossil is being studied. Murphy described the find this month at a
news conference
in Norman, during the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting.
The creature was a duck-billed dinosaur known as Brachylophosaurus.
In life it would have been a two-legged, plant-eating animal that measured
about 20 feet (6.1
metres) long. It died while just three to four years old, and is the first
juvenile of this species
ever found, Murphy says.
The young Brachylophosaurus may have died in an isolated place such as on a
sandbar,
then dried out before becoming buried by sand, Murphy speculates. That could
have allowed
the dinosaur to fossilise with much of its muscle and other tissue intact.
Paleontologists occasionally find pieces of dinosaur-skin impressions, or
other soft tissue,
but usually such features are lost when the dinosaur turns to stone.
"All too rarely do paleontologists find more than bones and teeth," says K.
Christopher
Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, who was not
involved in
the work.
Often such discoveries are controversial. For instance, a North Carolina
dinosaur, once
thought to have a fossilised heart intact inside its rib cage, may contain
nothing more than a
rock.
Still, Murphy is confident that he has a scientific treasure.
Only a few such well-preserved dinosaurs have been found before, he says. One
is the
dinosaur mummy discovered nearly a century ago that is at the American Museum
of Natural
History in New York. Another belongs to a natural history museum in Frankfurt,
Germany.
A third dinosaur mummy was found in Alberta, Canada, but was sunk by the
Germans during
World War I as it was being shipped to the British Museum, Murphy says.
An amateur fossil hunter discovered the new specimen during an expedition to
Montana's
Lower Judith River Formation in July 2000. Team leaders nicknamed the dinosaur
Leonardo,
after one of a pair of lovers' names found scrawled nearby with the date 1916,
says team
member Mark Thompson.
In 2001, the excavators removed the fossil in a single six-tonne block, trying
to preserve as
much as possible.
Calling it a mummy is a bit misleading, Murphy says.
Unlike Egyptian human mummies, which were elaborately prepared after death,
the dinosaur
underwent a rare series of natural circumstances to keep it preserved.
The team plans to study what allowed the fossil to stay so intact.
Peggy
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/21/1034561446286.html
Dinosaur 'mummy' still holds part of last meal
October 22 2002
Move over, Ice Man. Scientists have found a 77-million-year-old dinosaur so
well preserved
that they're calling it a "mummy."
Most of the leathery skin on this creature, discovered two summers ago in
Montana, is
intact, though turned to mineral. Its throat and shoulder muscle are still
there. Its face retains
traces of its nail-like beak. Its discoverers even say it contains the
remnants of its last meal,
a half-digested mass of plant material.
"Once in a blue moon we have an opportunity to get greater insight into life's
prehistory,"
says Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology at the Phillips County Museum in
Malta, Mont.,
where the fossil is being studied. Murphy described the find this month at a
news conference
in Norman, during the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting.
The creature was a duck-billed dinosaur known as Brachylophosaurus.
In life it would have been a two-legged, plant-eating animal that measured
about 20 feet (6.1
metres) long. It died while just three to four years old, and is the first
juvenile of this species
ever found, Murphy says.
The young Brachylophosaurus may have died in an isolated place such as on a
sandbar,
then dried out before becoming buried by sand, Murphy speculates. That could
have allowed
the dinosaur to fossilise with much of its muscle and other tissue intact.
Paleontologists occasionally find pieces of dinosaur-skin impressions, or
other soft tissue,
but usually such features are lost when the dinosaur turns to stone.
"All too rarely do paleontologists find more than bones and teeth," says K.
Christopher
Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, who was not
involved in
the work.
Often such discoveries are controversial. For instance, a North Carolina
dinosaur, once
thought to have a fossilised heart intact inside its rib cage, may contain
nothing more than a
rock.
Still, Murphy is confident that he has a scientific treasure.
Only a few such well-preserved dinosaurs have been found before, he says. One
is the
dinosaur mummy discovered nearly a century ago that is at the American Museum
of Natural
History in New York. Another belongs to a natural history museum in Frankfurt,
Germany.
A third dinosaur mummy was found in Alberta, Canada, but was sunk by the
Germans during
World War I as it was being shipped to the British Museum, Murphy says.
An amateur fossil hunter discovered the new specimen during an expedition to
Montana's
Lower Judith River Formation in July 2000. Team leaders nicknamed the dinosaur
Leonardo,
after one of a pair of lovers' names found scrawled nearby with the date 1916,
says team
member Mark Thompson.
In 2001, the excavators removed the fossil in a single six-tonne block, trying
to preserve as
much as possible.
Calling it a mummy is a bit misleading, Murphy says.
Unlike Egyptian human mummies, which were elaborately prepared after death,
the dinosaur
underwent a rare series of natural circumstances to keep it preserved.
The team plans to study what allowed the fossil to stay so intact.