Ancient reptile skeletons are the hallmark of any natural history museum gallery. Devoid of flesh or skin, which rotted away or was eaten by scavengers, these fossil specimens continue to inspire and provoke ideas about how life existed on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
In rare cases, soft tissue and even dinosaur skin has been found to survive the fossilisation process. Rapid burial of these dead creatures can lead to mineral concretions building up around biomolecules, protecting them from complete disintegration.
However, a dinosaur fossil complete with fossilised skin found in North Dakota suggests another process might be at play: mummification. Open wounds and bite marks found on the skin suggest that the carcass was scavenged long before it became buried under layers of sediment. Its bodily fluids leaked out, enabling the skin to dry, ensuring its preservation during the fossilisation process, to create a mummified dinosaur.
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