Dino Skin Preserved in Rare Fossil Find

November 22nd, 2006 · 1 Comment

Nov. 21, 2006 — In the past, what we’ve learned about dinosaurs has been mostly based on bones. That might soon change with the recent discovery of an extremely well preserved, 67-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur found with fossilized skin in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana, according to a North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences press release.

The near-complete remains may yield precious soft tissue, thanks to a technique that recovered structures resembling blood cells in a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton last year.

“We’ve only been looking at one thing in the past, the dinosaur skeletal system, but we could learn so much more if we could study their circulatory system and other body systems,” Vince Schneider, curator of paleontology at the museum, told Discovery News.
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More than 80 percent of the Edmontosaurus annectens skeleton has been recovered so far, he said, and even more bones likely still exist at the Hell Creek site. The skeleton — missing only an arm, a few toes and a few other bones — is estimated to be among the top five percent most complete dinosaur specimens worldwide, said Schneider.

The large piece of fossilized skin once covered the adult dino’s back right hip.