Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue

[Haole Girl]

Sorry if this was already posted! :hi:



Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue
Fossil May Shed New Light on the Creatures

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 3, 2007; Page A01

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

The 25-foot-long hadrosaur found by Tyler Lyson in an ancient river flood plain in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation is apparently the most complete and best preserved of the half-dozen mummified dinosaurs unearthed since early in the last century, they said.

Much scientific investigation remains to be done, and no peer-reviewed studies of it have yet been published, but the discovery appears to be yielding tantalizing new clues about the size, body mechanics and appearance of the reptilian beasts that ruled the Earth millions of years ago, said paleontologists studying the specimen.

"He looks like a blow-up dinosaur in some parts," said Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England who is leading the inquiry. "When you actually look at the detail of the skin, the scales themselves are three dimensional. . . . The arm is breathtaking. It's a three-dimensional arm, you can shake the dinosaur by the hand. It just defies logic that such a remarkable specimen could preserve."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/12/03/ST2007120300591.html

[semillama]

1. Shouldn't this be in the science forum?

As much as I love dinosaurs, dinosaur Paleontology isn't related to anthropology..

[Haole Girl]

2. Dinasours aren't related to Antropology?

Well, sorry, I didn't know! lol

But it just figures that I would finally get brave enough to post in here and it's not relevant!! :hi:

[semillama]

3. Nope, they aren't, but it's a common association

anthropology is the study of humans. Paleontology is the study of fossil animals. Within anthropology is the field of archaeology, and that's where the confusion comes in, because lots of people associate the image of people digging things up with dinosaur fossil excavations.

Now, fossil hominids, that would be appropriate, as it falls under paleoanthropology.

[Haole Girl]

4. Well, you have a point there! n/t