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View Full Version : Mummified dinosaur unearthed in North Dakota

unluckyluciano
03-26-2008, 12:13 PM
BISMARCK, North Dakota (AP) -- Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota's state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.

"This is the fourth dinosaur mummy that's ever been found in the world of any significance," said Stephen Begin, a Michigan consultant on the project. "It may turn out to be one of the best mummies, because of the quality of the skin that we're finding and the extent of the skin that's on the specimen."


This is good news. Should lead to some very exciting stuff and no I'm not talking about cloning.......

link to story (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/18/dinosaur.mummy.ap/index.html)
JCowScot
03-26-2008, 12:21 PM
Definitely. Skin coloration and type, cell shape, etc.

I guess once a dino nerd, always a dino nerd...haha
unluckyluciano
03-26-2008, 12:23 PM
And keeping with the dinosaur theme

Enormous Jurassic Sea Predator, Pliosaur, Discovered In Norway

ScienceDaily (Feb. 29, 2008) — Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway has announced the discovery of one of the largest dinosaur-era marine reptiles ever found – an enormous sea predator known as a pliosaur estimated to be almost 15 meters (50 feet) feet long.

A pliosaur is a type of plesiosaur, a group of extinct reptiles that lived in the world's oceans during the age of dinosaurs. Pliosaurs had a tear-drop shaped body and two sets of powerful paddles that it used to “fly” through the water. Their short neck supported a massive skull full of an impressive set of teeth. Pliosaurs were the top predators in the sea at the time, preying upon squid-like animals, fish, and even other marine reptiles.




link (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080229101002.htm)
Motion
03-26-2008, 12:30 PM
Wow, thats awesome.
unluckyluciano
03-26-2008, 01:37 PM
I think the most interesting thing I read was that this wasn't the first mummified dinosaur they had found. That shocked me haha.
Motion
03-26-2008, 01:40 PM
I think the most interesting thing I read was that this wasn't the first mummified dinosaur they had found. That shocked me haha.

Yeah I've never heard that before either.
NJFINSFAN1
03-26-2008, 02:06 PM
I think the most interesting thing I read was that this wasn't the first mummified dinosaur they had found. That shocked me haha.

I remember reading that they found a Mastodon like that not to long ago?
unluckyluciano
03-26-2008, 02:11 PM
I remember reading that they found a Mastodon like that not to long ago?

Well they have found other almost completely intact, fossils like you mentioned, such as the cave man they found a couple of years back. I had just never heard of them finding a dinosaur as such.
NJFINSFAN1
03-26-2008, 02:16 PM
Found this

A "mummified" dinosaur unearthed in North Dakota, a baby mammoth found frozen in Russia, or remains of penguins the size of people excavated in Peru: which discovery was the biggest hit with National Geographic News readers in 2007?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071226-top-dinosaurs.html


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Brown42000
03-26-2008, 02:50 PM
I love the fact they continue to find these dinsoaurs in such great condition I have always been a dinosaur nerd and I would love to be alive when they do clone a dinosaur.
alen1
03-26-2008, 03:06 PM
I love the fact they continue to find these dinsoaurs in such great condition I have always been a dinosaur nerd and I would love to be alive when they do clone a dinosaur.

As soon as he is cloned, it may be all over for us lol.
Rick 1966
03-26-2008, 10:55 PM
It would be cool if they could sequence DNA from a dino and figure out exactly what they looked like. I've been interested in dinosaurs since I was a kid...who would have thought back then (THIRTY YEARS AGO...God I'm old) that a lot of dinosaurs had feathers?
slickj101
03-27-2008, 02:38 AM
It would be cool if they could sequence DNA from a dino and figure out exactly what they looked like. I've been interested in dinosaurs since I was a kid...who would have thought back then (THIRTY YEARS AGO...God I'm old) that a lot of dinosaurs had feathers?

they call them birds now :up:

<- stole that from Jurassic Park.
JCowScot
03-27-2008, 07:11 AM
I love the fact they continue to find these dinsoaurs in such great condition I have always been a dinosaur nerd and I would love to be alive when they do clone a dinosaur.

Dude, absolutely! I think they would have to stick to herbivores, though. Any predator large enough to take down a full grown elephant should be avoided AT ALL COSTS! :no::lol: It may be fiction (for now), but I just see JP happening all over again...

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/1993_Jurassic_Park/1993_jurassic_park_003.jpg
unluckyluciano
03-27-2008, 12:35 PM
Dude, absolutely! I think they would have to stick to herbivores, though. Any predator large enough to take down a full grown elephant should be avoided AT ALL COSTS! :no::lol: It may be fiction (for now), but I just see JP happening all over again...

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/1993_Jurassic_Park/1993_jurassic_park_003.jpg

JP is the least of the problems dinosaurs would cause. Who knows if the environment is still built for them, and what they would do to the local wildlife.
Rick 1966
03-27-2008, 12:44 PM
OT, but Jurassic Park was a load of crap. The main point of the book seemed to be that zoos are impossible.
Desides
03-27-2008, 12:57 PM
OT, but Jurassic Park was a load of crap. The main point of the book seemed to be that zoos are impossible.

No, actually, the point was that reckless progression of science--doing stuff just because, rather than because we should--is dangerous.
Rick 1966
03-27-2008, 01:22 PM
No, actually, the point was that reckless progression of science--doing stuff just because, rather than because we should--is dangerous.

No, that was it's proclaimed message in the movie, and even on that one it meandered around like a drunken sailor at Mardis Gras. But the point of the story was that, no matter how many precautions you take, things will go wrong and animals will break out in some improbable way and kill people. Also, both the book and movie showed a profound misunderstanding of what chaos theory actually is.
Dol-Fan Dupree
03-27-2008, 01:27 PM
my question would be is do we have an atmosphere that can support such large reptiles
Rick 1966
03-27-2008, 01:29 PM
my question would be is do we have an atmosphere that can support such large reptiles

They could probably survive, but it would be cold and thin for them. I don't think they'd be dancing a jig. Of course, if we have the technology to clone dinos, we'd probably have them penned up in a climate-controlled environment to make things more comfortable for them.
unluckyluciano
03-27-2008, 01:30 PM
my question would be is do we have an atmosphere that can support such large reptiles

Which is my point, the ecosystem would be at risk.
unluckyluciano
03-27-2008, 01:36 PM
No, that was it's proclaimed message in the movie, and even on that one it meandered around like a drunken sailor at Mardis Gras. But the point of the story was that, no matter how many precautions you take, things will go wrong and animals will break out in some improbable way and kill people. Also, both the book and movie showed a profound misunderstanding of what chaos theory actually is.

chaos that as a system progresses it will lose energy thus becoming less predictable and more chaotic, or that any variables inputted into a system the outcome will be less predictable? Is that how you know it out of curiousity.