Dinosaur with skin discovered

Dinosaur with skin discovered.
Most dinosaurs are known only from their bones, which are seldom found joined together as they would be in real life.

But "we're looking at a three-dimensional skin envelope," Manning said. "In many places it's complete and intact—around the tail, arms, and legs and part of the body."

Find of a Lifetime

The hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, was discovered in 1999 by then-teenage paleontologist Tyler Lyson on his family's North Dakota property.

It was an extremely fortuitous find, because the odds of mummification are slim, researchers noted.

First the dinosaur body had to escape predators, scavengers, and degradation by weather and water. Then a chemical process must have mineralized the tissue before bacteria ate it. And finally, the remains had to survive millions of years undamaged. [Read More..]