Dakota the Dinosaur Mummy goes on Display

The arm and tail of a rare mummified dinosaur that has been heralded as one of the most amazing dinosaur discoveries ever made have gone on display in North Dakota’s state museum.  The dinosaur, believed to be a type of duck-billed dinosaur called an Edmontosaurus (nick-named Dakota), has been fossilised with a remarkable degree of detailed preservation, including skin and other soft body tissues.

At the unveiling of the first parts of the skeleton to go on display, the audience were able to examine one of the arms and the tail of this huge, plant-eater that roamed Dakota approximately 67 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian faunal stage).

The team at Everything Dinosaur first reported on this fantastic fossil in 2007, when the first detailed reports became available: Dinosaur Mummy unlocks Duck-Billed Dinosaur Secrets.

Commenting on the hadrosaurine fossil, Dr Phil Manning, a palaeontologist at Manchester University and one of the international team of researchers working on the project said:

“It is a fascinating fossil, and it’s one which we’re going to be disinterring secrets from … for many years to come”.

When members of the public see the huge reconstructions of dinosaur skeletons within museums, many get the wrong impression, believing that dinosaur fossils must be relatively common.  This is simply not true, even fossils of some of the most diverse and numerous types of dinosaur, such as dinosaurs from the Hadrosauridae (the Duck-Billed dinosaurs) are exceptionally rare.  Despite having ranged over much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Late Cretaceous only a few hundred hadrosaur fossils are known and the vast majority of these do not represent articulated fossils.  Dinosaur bones are extremely rare and to find the mummified remains of a dinosaur is exceptional.  Only a handful of mummified dinosaurs have ever been discovered.  For young Tyler Lyson, currently completing his Doctorate in Palaeontology at Yale University, who discovered the dinosaur remains on his uncle’s ranch back in 1999, the unveiling permits him to share his amazing discovery with a larger audience.  Up until now only the researchers and one or two privileged individuals were allowed to gaze upon this dinosaur, still partially encased in a sandstone block.

This hadrosaur, when it died was buried very quickly by fine sediment and this has preserved parts of the soft body tissue, the dinosaur’s skin scales have even been preserved on parts of the skeleton.  How much of the fossil has been recovered has still to be determined as much of the animal is still entombed in a large sandstone block that will take the research teams many years to prepare.

The tail and arm have been extracted from a smaller sandstone block, the larger block, which contains the rest of the fossil has undergone a CAT scan to determine its contents but the stone matrix is very solid and the block so big that the data produced is still being analysed.  It is not clear for example whether the skull of the animal has been preserved.

Fossilised Skin of “Dakota” the Edmontosaurus

Picture credit: Xinhua/Reuters

The picture was taken at the dig site and shows the remarkable degree of preservation of the fossilised skin, individual scales can be clearly seen.

“It’s certainly drawing a lot of attention to North Dakota,” commented state palaeontologist John Hoganson, a member of the North Dakota Geological Survey.  He went on:  “we know people are going to be coming in from all over the country and world to see this”.

It has been estimated that another $100,000 would be required to complete the work of extracting the fossil from its matrix.  Already the likes of the National Geographic Society has funded the project to the sum of approximately $200,000 but at this stage a definite cost for the work to be carried out cannot be calculated.  Since the scientists are not exactly sure what the sandstone block actually contains, any funding costs at this stage are merely estimates.  A spokesperson for the research team who helped remove the arm and the tail estimated that it could take more than a year to reveal the rest of the skeleton.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a rang of hadrosaur figures including replicas of Edmontosaurus: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

It is hoped that when the project has been completed Dakota will go on a world wide tour of museums, probably starting with Japan, before finally going on permanent display in the state after which it was named.

To read more about this fossil: Update on Dakota – the recently discovered Hadrosaurine Mummy.

Potential New Dinosaur Discovered in British Columbia

Most people imagine that new species of dinosaur are discovered in some remote, desolate part of the world.  Indeed, this is often the case, excavations in the outback of Australia, up mountains in Antarctica and the deserts of China have all yielded evidence of dinosaurs new to science.   Sometimes a new, as yet undescribed dinosaur can be literally under the noses of the scientists, yet can go unnoticed.

A previously unknown dinosaur may have been discovered after a set of fossilised bones in storage at the Royal British Columbia Museum were re-examined by a group of palaeontologists.

The group of just seven bones, believed to represent a single individual were discovered in northern British Columbia in 1971, but they have only recently been studied in detail and the conclusion drawn is that these bones represent an unknown species.

The fossils were found by geologist Kenny Flyborg Larsen, searching for uranium deposits near the confluence of Birdflat Creek and the Sustut river, north-east of the small town of Terrace in British Columbia.  An area more associated with fine fishing than with dinosaur discoveries.  The partial skeleton is believed to be approximately 70 million years old (Maastrichtian faunal stage of the Late Cretaceous), although more precise dating cannot be made as no record of the exact location of the discovery exists so the sediments in which they were deposited are not known.

Larsen kept the fossils until 2004, deciding to donate them to Dalhousie University’s Earth Sciences department.  The fossils were moved to the Royal British Columbia Museum in 2006.  This gave University of Alberta palaeontologist Victoria Arbour and her co-author of the paper on these fossilised bones, Milton Graves, a scientist from Dalhousie University the chance to study them.  The authors conclude in their findings published in the latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, that these bones belonged to as yet undescribed bird-hipped dinosaur, an ornithischian dinosaur.

Commenting on her research, Victoria stated:  

“There are similarities with two other kinds of dinosaurs, although there’s also an arm bone we’ve never seen before. The Sustut dinosaur may be a new species, but we won’t know for sure until more fossils can be found. It’s very distinct from other dinosaurs that were found at the same time in southern Alberta.”

University of Alberta Palaeontologist Victoria Arbour Prepares the Fossils

Picture credit: University of Alberta Handout

She hopes to lead an expedition to the discovery site in search of more evidence.

Other dinosaur finds have been made in British Columbia. in the past three decades, but the area is not as famous for Late Cretaceous dinosaurs as the neighbouring state of Alberta.  However, there may be many more exciting dinosaurs awaiting discovery in the rugged country of British Columbia.  A number of trace fossils (footprints) of dinosaurs have been discovered at a number of sites in the state but the the belated documenting of the 1971 find could make these fossil bones the first dinosaur body fossil ever discovered in British Columbia, the authors note.

In a statement released by the University of Alberta, the seven bones consisting of leg material, arm, toe and possible skull bones resemble bones from a small, bipedal, herbivore.  For the moment, these remains have been classified as ornithischian, the same Order as the horned dinosaurs such as Torosaurus and Triceratops and the hadrosaurs such as Edmontosaurus.

Safari Ltd have a variety of ornithischian dinosaur models in their range: Wild Safari Prehistoric World Models.

The researchers have tentatively named this British Columbian dinosaur Cerapoda incertae sedis, a nomen nudum, as the authors comment that the name may be altered “pending the discovery of additional diagnostic material.”

A nomen nudum is a name given to an organism by scientists that has not yet formally been described and for which no holotype (a specimen upon which the first description of the organism is based), has been formerly designated.

So new species of dinosaur can come to light when examining the fossils already found and stored within museums and other institutions.  The British Columbia case is not unusual, a number of new exciting discoveries have been made when fossils have been re-examined.  For example, the discovery of a new type of long-necked dinosaur (Sauropod) when fossil vertebrae were studied in detail at the Natural History Museum in London.

To read about the London discovery: Where is the best place to find a new Dinosaur? In a museum collection!

Trip to the Isle of Wight – Dinosaur Tooth Found

For young Josef Bangbala, his first fossil hunting trip turned out to be a red letter day for Isle of Wight palaeontologists.  Josef, aged seven, was out on an organised fossil hunting trip with his father whilst on holiday on the Isle of Wight.  Keen eyed Josef spotted a two-inch long dinosaur tooth, one of the largest found on the island.

His find has sparked a debate amongst scientists as the tooth, believed to belong to a baryonychid may lead to a re-think over the size and scale of these predatory dinosaurs.

Josef was on a special fossil hunting expedition during half term with his dad Tom, 52, of Stacksteads, Rossendale.

Tom said: “He is into dinosaurs and wants to be a palaeontologist when he is older and so I took him to the Isle of White on the trip last week”.

The southern part of the Isle of Wight has a number of Cretaceous sediments exposed, in fact unusually,  the only surface rocks on the island are sedimentary and they only herald from three geological periods.  A number of dinosaur fossils have been found on the island, particularly in the south-west between Compton Chine and Atherfield Point.  Wave action is constantly exposing new strata at the shoreline, providing opportunities for new fossils to come to light.

Josef’s dad went on to explain: “we were on the beach and he saw it sticking out of the shale. We showed it to the specialist we were with and he was beside himself. He said it was the best thing they have found for at least three years. They wanted to borrow it for a year and put it in the museum on display with Josef’s picture.”

A number of baryonychid teeth have been found but the size of this one makes it particularly special and may indicate that animals such as Baryonyx may have exceeded 10 metres in length.

An Illustration of Baryonyx (Baryonychid)

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Baryonyx was a large meat-eating dinosaur of the Early Cretaceous, a possible ancestor of the spinosaurs.  The name means “heavy claw” after the long, re-curved, sharp claws on its thumbs.  It is believed this animal was a fish-eater, although it probably was an opportunist hunter, feeding on other dinosaurs as well as scavenging the kills of other carnivores.  The first fossils of Baryonyx were discovered by an amateur fossil hunter called William Walker on a visit to a clay pit in Surrey, southern England.  About 70% of the entire skeleton of this first specimen was found and although not fully grown, careful study of this fossil has led scientists to speculate that creatures such as Baryonyx could grow to lengths in excess of 10 metres.  The large tooth found by Josef also indicates that Baryonyx could have been larger than first thought.

Steve Hutt, curator of Dinosaur Isle, on the Isle of Wight, described the tooth as “extra special” as it was much larger than other teeth found on the island.

“We find things everyday but once every few years we find something extra special like this fossil.  I would have been proud to have found it myself.  It is particularly extra lucky to have found it on his first hunt.  He is so young and he found it all by himself.”

Children often find fossils, there are a number of reasons for this, their eyesight is much more acute than an adult’s and they are able to discern strange objects amongst stones and debris.  Also being closer to the ground than an adult, they are often able to spot things overlooked by even the most dedicated expert.  Scientists are confident that this tooth is from a baryonychid as teeth from these dinosaurs are very characteristic.  They tend to be less re-curved than other large Theropod teeth, but the give-away is their unusually fine serrations (7 per mm).  These serrations are called denticles and are used to help determine the type of meat-eating dinosaur the tooth came from.  The tooth does not have a root, so it is likely that it was shed when the animal was alive.  Teeth with roots are usually associated with a dead animal, the teeth falling out of the skull complete, as the flesh rots away.

To see a model of Baryonyx: CollectA Prehistoric Life Models.