A MUMMIFIED dinosaur unearthed in North Dakota may contain traces of 66-million-year old organic material, which could provide vital information about its evolution.
The well-preserved fossil of a plant-eating hadrosaur, complete with skin and tendons, was discovered in 1999. Named “Dakota”, it was a rare find as bacteria in the soil usually break down soft tissue quickly. However, the rapid burial of Dakota in a waterlogged, low-oxygen environment allowed fossilisation to outpace the normal processes of microbial decay, preserving areas of soft tissue.
Phil Manning and Roy Wogelius at the University of Manchester, UK, used electron microscopy and X-ray…
