Fossolized Dinosaur

[luluisme]

Neat!

Washington Post: Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue

Highlights:

• The skin around the tail and on large swaths of the body appears generally in its original shape rather than squashed flat against the bones, giving researchers a three-dimensional look [...]
• The areas of uncollapsed skin have aided researchers in reconstructing Dakota's muscle sizes and allowed them to see, for instance, that a hadrosaur's backside was about 25 percent larger than previously thought. They estimate that Dakota could run as fast as 28 mph, faster than a Tyrannosaurus rex, the top predator of the time.
• And my personal favorite:
  
  The carcass was visited by at least one scavenger, a crocodile of the era that, Manning said, may have become stuck while feeding and died. Scientists found its preserved arm poking through Dakota's chest.
  "It's a fossil within a fossil," Manning said.