Philip Manning

Archaeology & Paleontology News posted 6/30/09 | 4 comments

Scientists Flesh Out Fossilized Tissues from Mummified Dinosaur

Earlier this week scientists studying fossilized teeth from a hadrosaur revealed how the duck-billed dinosaur chewed plants for food. Now another team, analyzing what may be the most intact dinosaur mummy discovered yet, report fresh details about the skin of a hadrosaur nicknamed Dakota, which might have been bigger and moved more quickly than previously thought.

"This is the closest you'll get to touching an extinct dinosaur," says Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England whose team is publishing its findings Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. [more]