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Duck-billed dinosaur fleshy midline and hooves reveal terrestrial clay-template “mummification”

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  1. unkz
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    This is the actual paper. For a much quicker overview (and where I originally found this) check this article: Dinosaur 'mummies' preserved so well that artists can recreate their appearance in...

    This is the actual paper. For a much quicker overview (and where I originally found this) check this article:

    Dinosaur 'mummies' preserved so well that artists can recreate their appearance in great detail

    The big highlights for me were

    • this clay template fossil process in general, that preserves so much soft tissue detail across >65mya
    • Edmontosaurus was a bipedal hooved land dwelling dinosaur (also walked on four legs)
    • excellent surface detail, which I’m hoping results in even more accurate 3d models coming to documentaries in the future

    Very cool:

    A tall, fleshy crest stretched from its neck down to its back, fading into a neat row of interlocking spikes along the tail. The skin bore intricate polygonal scales, some barely a few millimeters wide.

    By contrast, end-Cretaceous E. annectens preserves the oldest hoof renderings for any tetrapod, the first record of hooves in a reptile, the first instance of a hooved tetrapod capable of bipedal locomotion, and the first hooved tetrapod with disparate fore and hindfoot posture (unguligrade versus subunguligrade, respectively).

    4 votes