Badlands deliver good find in "Dakota" dinosaur tissue

William Atkins
Monday, 03 December 2007 22:42

Science - Biology

A high school student, turned paleontologist-graduate-student at Yale University, has discovered a rare mummified dinosaur in the North Dakota Badlands. It is being hailed as providing new scientific information on dinosaurs.

Specifically, the discovery is expected to add an extraordinary amount of information about how such animals looked inside and out. It is expected that the discovery will add to human knowledge on how dinosaurs evolved over time.

The soft muscle, ligaments, tendons, and skin from a 25-foot (7.6 meter) hadrosaur (or duck-billed dinosaur, because their heads look similar to ducks) was found in 1999 by 16-year-old Tyler Lyson on his uncle’s ranch in the Hell Creek Formation Badlands of North Dakota. Lyson now goes to school at Yales' Department of Geology and Geophysics in New Haven, Connecticut.
 
Much of the discovered bodily material is from the animal’s arms, legs, and tail.

Lyson's discovery was reported by scientists on Monday, December 3, 2007 and is already considered a major find of a well-preserved specimen of a dinosaur. Scientists consider this discovery to be the first-ever of a dinosaur with its skin envelope not collapsed onto the sheleton. The specimen has been nicknamed “Dakota,” and is estimated to be about 67 million years old.

Scientists state that finding the intact tissue of Dakota was rare since such material must avoid being eaten by predators, degradation from weather, and decay from bacterial consumption—and still remain viable for tens of millions of years.

The hadrosaur was a plant eating dinosaur and, thus, is often called “cows of the Cretaceous.” They are members of the family Hadrosauridae, which were common herbivores (plant eaters) in what is now known as Asia, Europe, and North America. The geologic period called Cretaceous occurred between 145 and 65 million years ago. The hadrosau had a horny but toothless beak and a mouth that contained many hundreds of teeth, suited for clipping off twigs and leaves. Their long but stiff tail was used for balance.

English paleontologist Phillip Manning, from the University of Manchester, is heading the research team's efforts on the hadrosaur specimen. From information provided by United Press International (UPI), Manning states, "It just defies logic that such a remarkable specimen could preserve.”

Manning has written about the discovery in the National Geographic book Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science. The book tells of the efforts of Manning, Lyson, and a team of Yale students to excavate, preserve, and analyze Dakota.

A National Geographic special (“Dino Autopsy”) about the discovery of Dakota will air on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. EST, and again on Monday, December 10th.

More information on the discovery of Dakota and dinosaurs in general can be found at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/dinosaurs and http://www.NGCDinos.com.

UPDATE: The National Geographic Channel in Australia will air the 1 hour documentary special on Sunday, December 16 at 8.30pm AEDT.