Mummified Hadrosaur Remains - Unlocks Duck-Billed Dinosaur Secrets

Amazing Duck-Billed Dinosaur From Dakota A Mummified Fossil

Dinosaur bones are rare, well-preserved ones are exceptionally rare and for some palaeontologists the discovery of fossilised bones in association with each other or bones in articulation are the find of a life-time. However, for one young, American scientist, Tyler Lyson, his discovery of a remarkably well-preserved duck-billed dinosaur, complete with fossilised skin, ligaments and tendons is a discovery to beat most other discoveries.

Lucky Find by PhD Student in Dakota Badlands

Tyler, who is currently completing his Doctorate in Palaeontology at Yale University, found the amazing fossil whilst on a fossil hunting expedition in a remote part of North Dakota.

Palaeontologists Take Steps to Protect Dig Sites

Field Workers Attempt to Protect Fossil Dig Sites

Following a number of incidents of fossil thefts and deliberate vandalism from Canadian vertebrate fossil sites, scientists are taking steps to try to protect the precious fossils that they find. Dinosaur fossils can take many months or even years to be excavated and removed from a dig site. In many cases, each fragment of bone or piece of a tooth has to be carefully excavated and then protected with glues and resins before they can be taken from the location. This painstaking process can take many hundreds of man hours to complete and as a result many fossils are only partially mapped and prepared in each season. The site is often carefully covered over so that palaeontologists can return to the area to complete their work later on that year or even in subsequent years.

Trying to Trace the Dinosaur Family Tree

Assessing Taxonomic Relationships Amongst the Dinosauria

Trying to organise Dinosauria into clades or family groups has kept many palaeontologists burning the midnight oil. Unfortunately, unlike extant animals; when it comes to organising the family tree of extinct animals such as dinosaurs, a new fossil find, or some new research into existing specimens can throw everything into confusion.

What were once accepted relationships are often questioned and new fossils provide tantalising glimpses into the true nature of the relationship between different types of prehistoric animal.

Two Great Groups Classified

More Prehistoric Turtle Remains From a Columbian Coal Mine

Giant Turtle with a Rounded Shell - Reptiles Ruled When Dinosaurs Died Out

Palaeontologists and field workers have been marvelling at the latest discovery of huge reptile fossils from Columbia's Cerrejon coal mine. After the dinosaurs died out, there were many gaps in ecosystems, these were rapidly filled by animals that had survived the Cretaceous mass extinction event that saw the demise of the Dinosauria. In the geological time period that followed the Cretaceous, known as the Palaeogene, global temperatures soared and planet Earth became a paradise for those reptile genera that survived.

Sixty Million Year Old Giant Turtle

The research team have uncovered the carapace of another enormous freshwater turtle from the coal mine.