Dino Autopsy
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Dakota (specimen NDGS 2000) is the nickname given to an important '' Edmontosaurus''
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
found in the
Hell Creek Formation The Hell Creek Formation is an intensively studied division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The formation stretches over portions of ...
in
North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...
. It is about 67 million years old, placing it in the
Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval ...
, the last
stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...
of the
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
. It was about 12 m (40 ft) long and weighed about 7-8  tons. The fossil is unusual and scientifically valuable because soft tissue including
skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different de ...
and muscle have been fossilized, giving researchers the rare opportunity to study more than
bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...
s, as with most
vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...
fossils. Preliminary research results indicate that hadrosaurs had heavier tails and were able to run faster than was previously thought.


Discovery and analysis

Dakota was first discovered by paleontology student Tyler Lyson on his family's North Dakota property in 1999 while he was a high school student, but he did not investigate the site in detail until 2004, when he discovered the soft tissue preservation. Lyson teamed with British paleontologist Phillip Manning, and the site was excavated in summer 2006. Manning's team used a large-scale CT scanner, provided by
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
and the
Boeing Company The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
, to generate high-resolution scans of the preserved muscles and tendons of the rear legs. Because the intervertebral discs which space out the spinal column of the tail have been fossilized, researchers have been able to calculate its length more accurately. The preservation of its muscles and
tendon A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...
s allow the calculation of its
mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
. The results indicate the dinosaur could likely have run at , faster than the estimated top speed of ''
Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...
'', at . The well-preserved
integument In biology, an integument is the tissue surrounding an organism's body or an organ within, such as skin, a husk, shell, germ or rind. Etymology The term is derived from ''integumentum'', which is Latin for "a covering". In a transferred, or ...
has retained its texture, and researchers have mapped it in three dimensions. The
scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number w ...
are of different sizes, and researchers speculate that their pattern may reflect the animal's coloration in life. For example, areas of an arm's joints are textured in what resembles a striped pattern. This fossil's examination was the subject of ''Dino Autopsy'', a documentary aired on National Geographic Channel on December 9, 2007. The specimen was previously housed at the Marmarth Research Foundation (MRF) under the catalog number MRF-3, but now it is permanently part of the collection of the North Dakota Geological Survey located at the State of North Dakota, under the specimen number/catalogue NDGS 2000.


Taphonomy

Dinosaur fossils with Dakota's degree of preservation are extremely rare because many different factors must come together to allow it to occur. The carcass first must escape scavengers as well as degradation by the elements. The soft tissue must then be mineralized before it decomposes. Finally, as with all fossils, the mineralized body must escape destruction by geological forces over millions of years. News reports have referred to Dakota as "
mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...
"; however, it is actually a fossil of a mummified dinosaur, where the animal's dried tissues have been transformed to
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
through fossilization. Stephanie K. Drumheller and team in 2022 proposed that Dakota was exceptionally preserved because of several identified scavenging marks to the carcass, which helped to escape the gases, fluids, and microbes that develop during decomposition. This may have likely allowed soft tissues to withstand the weeks and/or months required for desiccation prior to burial and eventual fossilization.


See also

*
Timeline of hadrosaur research A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale represent ...
* Edmontosaurus mummy AMNH 5060 * Edmontosaurus mummy SMF R 4036 * Dueling Dinosaurs


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dakota (Fossil) 1999 in paleontology Cretaceous fossil record Dinosaur fossils Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Paleontology in North Dakota Saurolophines