Scientists have recently announced the discovery of a well-preserved duckbilled hadrosaur with fossilized (mummified) skin (now given the name Dakota). 

According to news reports, a small part of the dinosaur (including a section of the tailbone and some vertebrae) was originally found in 1999 by a 16-year-old named Tyler Lyson on his family's land in dinosaur-rich Marmath, North Dakota. Thinking that he hadn't found much, he ignored the find for a time. 

In 2004, he returned to the site and uncovered some of the dinosaur's fossilized skin. At that point he called in outside help. Lyson told reporters later, "I didn't have very high hopes for the animal. I figured the excavation would take two to three weeks, I'd have a hadrosaur tail, it would make a nice museum piece, but scientifically it would not be that impressive." 

One of Dr. Philip Manning's students saw the 65 million-year-old fossil and reported the find to his professor. Manning helped Lyson raise over a million dollars to excavate the entire dinosaur; then he and other scientists from the University of Manchester in the UK worked with Tyler and other volunteers in the excavation which was completed in 2006. When done, Lyson and the scientists had a 10-ton block of dinosaur body and a 4-ton block of tail. When work on the fossil is completed, it will be kept by the Tyler Lyson's own Marmarth Research Foundation in North Dakota.

 

Unknown. At least 26 other pieces of preserved dinosaur skin (most of them quite small) have been found around the world. Another hadrosaur discovered a few years ago was found in the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument in Utah.

According to the National Geographic's publicity machine, this may be the "greatest dinosaur" ever discovered. Apparently, it is the most complete and best-preserved dinosaur found since 1908.

This suggestion makes many scientists nervous, however, since Dakota is a money-making venture for the National Geographic. No scientific papers have yet been published on the discovery; National Geographic's show, "Dino Autopsy," has been the only peek so far at the "greatest discovery."

Even Tyler Lyson, the original discoverer of Dakota, who is now a graduate student at Yake University, has commented warily: "I totally agree that before we go out and say, 'Oh look, this is the greatest dinosaur ever, and it has showed us this and showed us that,' we have to prove it to the scientific community. We're still waiting on a lot of that."

As one science blogger recently wrote: "...if I found a fossil with some never before discovered attribute, like muscles and organs as claimed by the researchers in those various articles, I wouldn’t run around half crazy telling everyone I knew about it. I would take the specimen back to my lab, analyze it as carefully as humanly possible to make sure I had what I thought I had, and then I would publish the findings in Nature.... The fact that the findings don’t come from a peer reviewed journal, but from the magazine that sponsored the trip, makes me a wee bit skeptical. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see."

With that in mind, here are some of the statements reported in recent news accounts:

From independent.co.uk: "British researchers involved in the project said yesterday that the near-perfect preservation of the plant-eating dinosaur's skin has enabled them to build up an exceptional picture of the animal, including the ability to estimate its top speed of 28mph. This means that the duck-billed dinosaur, belonging to a group called the hadrosaurs, could out run the top predator, Tyrannosaurus rex, which shared the same terrestrial habitat as the hadrosaurs 67 million years ago."

From National Geographic: "Preliminary [note: unpublished] studies of the 67-million-year-old hadrosaur...are already altering theories of what the ancient creatures' skin looked like and how quickly they moved, project researchers say. Further investigations may reveal detailed information about soft tissues, which could help unlock secrets about the evolution of dinosaurs and their descendents...."

From world-science.net: "Dakota may alter our understanding of how dinosaurs looked and moved.... Its back­side...seems to be 25 percent larger than previously thought, suggesting it could have run 45 kilometers (28 miles) an hour—50 per­cent faster than T. rex. The skin also shows evidence of a possibly striped camouflage pattern in some areas, researchers said. A pattern of banding was found in the larger and smaller scales, something that in modern reptiles is often associated with color patterns...."

From telegraph.co.uk: "Although the first dinosaur mummy was found a century ago, the newly described fossil is striking because it contains soft tissues from the original beast.... The creature had no chest cavity, suggesting it had been partly eaten by predators before it was mummified by highly unusual conditions: acidic waterlogged sediments formed around the fallen beast triggering a rapid deposit of minerals and trapping organic molecules before they decayed."

From sciencedaily.com: Dakota "was the first-ever find of a dinosaur where the skin 'envelope' had not collapsed onto the skeleton. This has allowed scientists to calculate muscle volume and mass for the first time. The fact that the skin is mostly intact allows for the exciting possibility that some of its original chemistry is still present.... Among the exciting discoveries are a fleshy pad on Dakota's palm, hooves on its feet made of keratin, and well-preserved skin scales that vary in size and shape across the body, tail, arms and legs of the dinosaur."

For adults, the story of Dakota's discover is reported in Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science . Manning takes readers on a tour of dinosaur mummy finds—from the first such excavation in 1908 to a baby dinosaur unearthed in 1980, from a dino with a heart in South Dakota to titanosaur embryos in Argentina. And he discusses his own groundbreaking analysis of "Dakota," discovered by Tyler Lyson.

The two best books on the subject of dinosaur mummies for children are:

Dino Mummy by Philip Manning tells the story of Tyler Lyson's discovery of Dakota. He also transports readers back 65 million years , when herds of hadrosaurs migrated across vast floodplains. Dakota died during the Late Cretaceous Period on the floodplains of North America, its body was locked in a rocky tomb. But Dakota's story was far from over, as Manning's account shows. 

Dinosaur Mummies: Beyond Bare-Bone Fossils by Kelly Milner Halls takes the reader on a chronological tour of various dinosaur mummy discoveries, starting with the 1908 discovery of the Sternberg mummies. She moves on to other fossilized discoveries. Highly readable and highly recommended for kids. This book was published before the discovery of Dakota was announced (so Dakota is not described in it)...but Halls covers all of the other major dinosaur finds which will enthrall dinosaur lovers of all ages.

Information on other dinosaur and dinosaur mummy books