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Researchers have discovered a terrifying pair of dinosaur mummies that appear to have been preserved in an unexpected way.
These dinosaur remains are different from wrapped mummies egypt Or natural human mummies that accidentally become preserved in swamps or deserts. Mummified dinosaurs are so old that their skin and soft tissues become fossilized. Scientist Use these rare remains, along with dinosaur bones, to recreate what these prehistoric creatures might have looked like.
Scientists have been unearthing dinosaur mummies for more than a century. Some were buried immediately after dying, while others were drowned or dried.
Many of them, including the mummy of a duck-billed dinosaur discovered in 1908, are from the eastern region Wyoming, USIn the new study, scientists returned to this so-called mummy field and found new remains, including the mummy of a duck-billed dinosaur that was only a few years old when it died.
“This is the first juvenile dinosaur that has actually been mummified,” said Paul Sereno. University of Chicago Paleontologists involved in the discovery.
Surprisingly, the new mummies have been preserved without any evidence of fossilized skin. Instead, they left traces of their skin and scales on a thin layer of soil which hardened with the help of microbes.
This style of mummification has preserved other organisms before, but scientists didn’t think it could happen on land. It’s possible that other mummies found at the Wyoming site were made in a similar manner, Mr. Sereno said.
Scientists used these clay templates to paint a clear picture of what duck-billed dinosaurs might have looked like when they were alive, including the spikes on their tails and hooves on their feet. The new findings were published Thursday in the journal Science,
Understanding how dinosaur mummies are formed could help scientists uncover more of them. Mateusz Wosik, a paleontologist at the University of Misericordia who was not involved in the discovery, said it is important to look not only at the dinosaur’s bones, but also at traces of skin and soft tissues that cannot be studied or even removed.
More mummies provide more information about how these creatures grew and survived.
“Every time we find one, there’s such a wealth of information about these animals,” said Stephanie Drumheller, a vertebrate paleontologist. University of TennesseeKnoxville, who were not part of the study.