One of the Best-Preserved Dinosaurs of All Time Found in Canada
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One of the Best-Preserved Dinosaurs Of All Time Found in Canada - ExtremeTech:
Professor Brian Pickles and paleontologist Caleb Brown stand next to the exposed parts of their newly-discovered fossil. (Photo: Melissa Dergousoff/University of Reading)When we think of dinosaur fossils, we often think of footprints preserved in sandstone, or bones carefully displayed inside a museum. But what about mummified dinosaurs? That's what researchers think they've found lodged into a hillside in Alberta, Canada.
Professor Brian Pickles, a paleontologist at the United Kingdom's University of Reading, recently led a scouting trip at Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park. [...] when he and his team saw what appeared to be a full "dinosaur mummy" sticking out of the hillside.
An excavation mission followed. The mummy's exposed parts included a foot and part of a tail covered in fossilized skin. The dinosaur is so well-preserved that the researchers were able to make out individual scales and tendons. If the rest of the fossil is as well-preserved as the exposed bits, the researchers might even be able to examine the dinosaur's internal organs, as well as its stomach contents to determine what its last meal was.
[...] "This animal probably either died and then immediately got covered over by sand and silt in the river," Pickles told USA Today. "Or it was killed because a river bank fell onto it." Pickles went on to say that because dinosaurs grew very quickly, it's less common to find fossilized juveniles. This specific subset is important as it offers researchers insight into how dinosaurs' lives developed with age.
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