USA: Fossil dinosaur skin found – researchers fear worst

It’s a spectacular sight. Somehow reassuring: apparently, we didn’t completely misimagine the origin of dinosaurs. At least Edmondosaurus, a dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous period that was 13 meters long and about 3 meters tall, seems to have had the scaly lizard skin attributed to dinosaurs from at least the “prehistoric land”. It is certainly not representative of the various representatives of its kind, some of which are feathered, but at least this dinosaur looked like a dinosaur.

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Edmondosaurus is native to America, where researchers recently made an amazing discovery. Fossil skin of a dinosaur has been discovered for the first time in North Dakota, USA. It is part of the front leg of an edmontosaurus that died about 70 million years ago. As can be seen from the remains, the planters attacked him. Edmundosaurus was a silent herbivore. Nevertheless, part of its skin remained intact and fossilized for thousands of years.

The impressive discovery inspired science — but also inspired fear. This has never really been considered, as dinosaur skin appears to have fossilized potential, which may have simply been overlooked and destroyed during the excavation of previously easily observed bones.

The skin remains were examined by a team of paleontologists led by Stephanie Drumheller of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Drumheller suspects that Edmondosaurus’ flesh and muscles were eaten away by scavengers, but the tough skin remained intact. This effectively exhumed the dead dinosaur’s body, giving the outer shell more exposure to the air and allowing it to dry out more easily and then decompose. A stroke of luck – it must have happened often. Because in those days curry and meat eaters are more.

Although there is now concern that fossilized skin may be largely overlooked – thanks to a discovery in North Dakota, researchers are now sensitized and aware that such amazing discoveries can even exist.

Note: This article originally appeared on stern.de.