A 77-million-year-old dinosaur mummy, dubbed Leonardo by his finders (for some nearby graffiti), was found in July 2000 in Montana.

Here are the facts about the dinosaur and its death and "mummification":

--it was a young Brachylophosaurus (a two-legged, plant-eating duck-billed dinosaur). Approximately 3 or 4 years old when it died, this Brachylophosaurus is the first child of this species to have been discovered. It is also the best preserved fossilized dinosaur found in the last 70 years (according to a report in USA Today). The dinosaur would have been 20 feet long at the time of its death and weighed about 2,000 pounds.

--scientists aren't sure but they suspect the youngster became trapped on a sandbar and dried out before it was covered in sand.

--over the centuries and millennia, the dinosaur became fossilized and turned into a 6-and-one-half ton piece of sandstone.

--most amazingly, 80 percent of its skin and muscles are intact. Scientists can even see the remains of its last meal (a half-digested wad of 40 types of ferns and evergreen wood).

 

Other fossilized dinosaur mummies have been found, one recent one in China involving a dinosaur with feather-like skin. Another dinosaur mummy (found about 100 years ago) resides at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Still another can be found at a museum in Frankfurt, Germany. You will find other reports of dinosaur mummies on this website.

The discovery has already helped paleontologists rewrite their knowledge of the Brachylophosaurus. Instead of a long neck (that is usually pictured), they see now that the Brachylophosaurus had a thick neck with bulging shoulder muscles. They also see the finely scaled skin, a comb which ran along its back, and the cartilage of its beak and claws.

Not only will Leonardo be studied by paleontologists, mummy experts will be allowed to conduct some studies as well. The research will take a great deal of time, however. As of 2008, Leonardo is headed to the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences for further study. Beginning in June 2008, Leonardo will be exhibited at the museum for a year before being returned to its home at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum in Malta, Montana.

The Great Plains Dinosaur Museum opens this June, but will feature a replica of Leonardo until the original returns. Then after the original's return in 2009, the replica will tour the United States. Details of the tour have yet to be released.

For further information about Leonardo, follow this link: www.montanadinosaurdigs.com/brachleo.htm

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.

 

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.

Information on other dinosaur and dinosaur mummy books