Dinosaur discovery

Dinosaur discovery

In 1999, a teenager in North Dakota discovered a fossilized dinosaur. The fossil, now called Dakota, has turned out to be very important to paleontologists and our understanding of dinosaurs. You probably know that a dinosaur fossil occurs when minerals replace the tissues of the dinosaur. This sort of turns the dinosaur to stone so that it no longer decomposes. The chemical conditions surrounding Dakota’s death caused the mineral particles to replace the animal tissues very quickly so that the body did not decompose much. Many of the dinosaur’s soft tissues are preserved, along with hard parts, such as bones. This is a very rare finding and gives researchers a lot more information about the dinosaur.

Dakota, a 66-million-year-old duckbilled hadrosaur, is a running dinosaur that the fearsome T. Rex preyed upon. This fossil shows that duckbilled hadrosaurs were actually larger than scientists used to think. They weigh about 3.5 tons and can be 40 feet long. Surprisingly, the vertebrae of their spines are separated by soft tissue. Currently, museums display dinosaur skeletons with the vertebrae right up against each other. Adding in this newly-discovered space could make large dinosaurs three feet longer. The preserved muscles, tendons, and ligaments have shown researchers that the hadrosaur was actually stronger and faster, too. At this speed, it could run a little faster than its predator, T. Rex, which makes sense. The skin is also very nicely preserved. As Phillip Manning of the Manchester University in England said, “the skin is wonderful…there is depth and structure to [it].” The fossil shows that the skin was made from scales, and it probably had a striped pattern, although researchers cannot know its color. Can you imagine actually laying eyes on the skin of a dinosaur? The researchers are investigating the inner parts of Dakota by using the world’s largest CT scanner, which is usually used for objects such as space shuttle engines. As far as organic chemicals, there is no DNA because the body is so old. But there may be other chemicals that would give scientists further information.

You can learn more about Dakota through two books that will be published soon. DinoMummy: The Life, Death, and Discovery of Dakota is for children, while Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science is meant for adults.