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An exceptionally well-preserved duck-billed hadrosaur recovered successful North Dakota hints that dinosaur mummies whitethorn beryllium much communal than we think
Life 12 October 2022Illustration of the Edmontosaurus dinosaur and photograph of the preserved forelimb Full colour Edmontosaurus reconstruction by Natee Puttapipat, CC-BY 4.0
A 70-million-year-old dinosaur has preserved tegument with gashes that suggest it was partially eaten by crocodile-like carnivores and perchance different animals – which whitethorn assistance explicate wherefore it became mummified.
As it was ripped apart, the estimated 7-metre-long duck-billed hadrosaur astir apt mislaid galore of the bodily fluids and gases that beforehand decay, and past dried retired earlier becoming buried nether aggregate layers of sediment.
Stephanie Drumheller-Horton astatine the University of Tennessee astatine Knoxville, a palaeontologist specialising successful crocodile bites, was contacted by Clint Boyd astatine North Dakota Geological Survey successful Bismarck to analyse the mummified remains of an Edmontosaurus dinosaur, recovered astatine the Hell Creek Formation of south-west North Dakota.
The fossil was exceptionally well-preserved, with aggregate gashes and punctures successful the forelimb and tail. The arc-shaped bid of holes and scrapes connected the limb and manus bones and tegument were astir surely made by crocodile-like teeth grabbing connected to the hadrosaur, she says. A acceptable of longer, V-shaped gashes successful the tegument – particularly on the once-meaty process – could person been made by the claws of a overmuch larger carnivore, perchance a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Certainly immoderate it was, the harm connected the process was physically larger than immoderate was moving connected the arm,” says Drumheller-Horton. “So we deliberation we person astatine slightest 2 antithetic animals involved, and perchance more.”
The attacks astir apt emptied the cadaver successful a mode that slows decay – a improvement already known successful forensic investigation of modern specimens. “So alternatively of each of that worldly sticking astir wrong the body, keeping it wet, pushing that decomposition along, it’s present retired of the way,” says Drumheller-Horton. “It’s fundamentally hollowed retired and capable to adust out, and what you person near down is tegument and bones.
“In honour of Halloween, I’ve been jokingly calling it a skeleton successful a tegument bag,” she says.
Even so, wounded marks successful brushed tissue, similar skin, don’t needfully clasp their archetypal shape, which makes it much hard to place what happened, she says. The squad is unsure whether the hadrosaur was attacked by predators earlier decease oregon by scavengers aft decease – oregon both.
The findings overturn the conception that dinosaur mummies lone hap successful exceptional circumstances of precise accelerated burial oregon abrupt drying, says Drumheller-Horton. They besides suggest that mummification isn’t arsenic uncommon arsenic antecedently thought, arsenic galore partially eaten dinosaurs astir apt dried retired earlier becoming buried nether layers of sediment.
It is much apt that erstwhile scientists travel crossed mummified dinosaur tegument – which is highly bladed and fragile – they either mistake it for a elemental imprint, oregon they ne'er spot it due to the fact that it is accidentally destroyed arsenic the fossil is removed from the sediment.
Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275240
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