Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of what appears to be the world's most intact dinosaur mummy: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue, and possibly muscle and organs.

Preserved by a natural fluke of time and chemistry, the four-ton mummified hadrosaur, a duck-billed herbivore common to North America, could reshape the understanding of dinosaurs and their habitat, its finders say.

"There is no doubt about it that this dinosaur is a very, very significant find," said Tyler Lyson, a graduate student in geology at Yale University who discovered the dinosaur in North Dakota.

Nicknamed Dakota, the hadrosaur is one of only five naturally preserved dinosaur mummies ever discovered. Unlike previous dinosaur mummies, which typically involve skin impressions pressed into bones, Dakota's entire skin envelope appears to remain largely intact.

After examining the dinosaur at a local lab, the scientists encased it and the remaining surrounding soil in plaster and hauled it by truck to a Boeing research center in Canoga Park, California, north of Los Angeles. There, Boeing volunteered the world's largest computerized tomography, or CT, scanner, originally built by NASA to scan space shuttle parts for flaws. At 8,000 pounds, the fossil became the largest object ever scanned at high resolution. The researchers are using the data to survey the body's interior before chipping away further on the fossil. "The CT scan is like a roadmap," said Manning. "It will help us recover the rest of the animal more easily and efficiently."

The first significant findings from the dinosaur, currently under review at a major scientific journal, will describe the unique chemical balance that preserved the fossil. The body, meanwhile, remains on the Boeing scanner, as Manning and his colleagues sift through terabytes of data. So far, they have determined that the hadrosaur's hindquarters are 25 percent larger than previously thought for the species, meaning that it could run up to 28 mph -- faster than previously estimated. They have also discovered that the specimen's vertebrae, which museums commonly stack together, are actually spaced 10 millimeters apart. The result, Manning said, implies that scientists may have been underestimating the size of hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs.

The National Geographic Channel, which helped fund the research, will recount the saga of Dakota's discovery in a documentary, Dino Autopsy, Sunday, Dec. 9, at 9 p.m.

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