Osborn had interpreted the skin-enclosed hand of the mummy as a kind of webbing; other animals have skin between their toes to increase the surface area and therefore propulsive force while paddling. The hadrosaur mummy, by contrast, had its forelimbs enclosed within skin, making them rather small and inefficient organs for paddling. Hadrosaurs were land animals, we now know, not swamp-bound creatures.
During the past year announcements about two new dinosaur mummies have thrilled researchers with the expectations of specimens as rare and stupendous as the Sternberg mummy. It has yet to be fully described in the scientific literature, and rumor has it that it is not as well-preserved as was hoped, but it still is an exciting discovery.
Even more amazing is a hadrosaur mummy that is due to be unveiled this month at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Particularly exciting is the possibility that this mummy appears to have preserved not only skin and muscle, but also the shape and arrangement of some internal organs.
If this is true, it is one of the most important paleontological discoveries ever made. Both mummies will require years of careful study, but they offer paleontologists an unprecedented look into the lives of animals that lived while our ancestors scurried beneath their feet.
Riley Black is a freelance science writer specializing in evolution, paleontology and natural history who blogs regularly for Scientific American. Mammuthus primigenius calf nicknamed Mascha Wikipedia In the summer of , the freelance fossil hunter Charles H. Significant findings have already been made.
Phillip Manning is a paleontologist, fossil hunter and writer. He has taught vertebrate paleontology and evolution at the universities of Liverpool and Manchester and currently heads the vertebrate paleontology research group at the University of Manchester U.
He has worked in museums on the Isle of Wight, Clitheroe, York and Manchester and has held several curatorial positions. His research is both broad and diverse, and he has published papers on dinosaur tracks, theropod biomechanics, arthropod paleobiology, vertebrate locomotion and the evolution of respiration and flight in birds. Lyson now has a degree in biology and is currently studying for a PhD in paleontology at Yale University.
Materials provided by National Geographic Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Science News. Dakota may contribute some significant findings to the field of palaeontology, altering our comprehension of how dinosaurs looked and moved: The Hadrosaur's backside appears to be approximately 25 percent larger than previously thought; a surprising conclusion that could change our image of the dinosaur for the last years.
The Hadrosaur's backside is some 25 percent bigger than originally thought, enabling it to reach speeds of 28 mph - 10 mph faster than T. The skin envelope also shows evidence that the Hadrosaur may have been striped and not block coloured, producing an almost striped camouflage pattern on some parts of the dinosaur.
ScienceDaily, 3 December National Geographic Society. Retrieved November 9, from www. The discovery fills a major void in the ape fossil Manning's team used a large-scale CT scanner , provided by NASA and the Boeing Company , to generate high-resolution scans of the preserved muscles and tendons of the rear legs.
Because the intervertebral discs which space out the spinal column of the tail have been fossilized, researchers have been able more accurately to calculate its length.
The preservation of its muscles and tendons allow the calculation of its mass. The well-preserved integument has retained its texture, and researchers have mapped it in three dimensions. The scales are of different sizes, and researchers speculate that their pattern may reflect the animal's coloration in life. For example, areas of an arm's joints are textured in what resembles a striped pattern. Fossil Wiki Explore.
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Register Don't have an account? Dinosaur mummies. Edit source Fossil Record Talk 1. The Trachodon mummy Skin impression of Edmontosaurus The Trachodon mummy is a very well-preserved fossil of Edmontosaurus annectens , a duckbilled dinosaur. Hadrosaurian Dinosaurs of North America. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 1 : 33— Retrieved on Science 29 : — Occasional Paper of the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. ISBN The Journal of Paleontological Sciences online.
New York: William Morrow. Journal of Paleontology 58 1 : — Douglas; and Tremain, Emily S. Abstracts with Programs — Geological Society of America 35 2 : New York: Knopf.
Dinosaurs of Italy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
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