News Paleontology

Dear Mummy: Rare fossil reveals common dinosaur’s soft tissue

By Sid Perkins

A mummified dinosaur unearthed in Montana a year ago is giving scientists a rare peek at what the creature’s muscles and other soft tissues may have looked like.

SOLID DISCOVERY. Tissues preserved in Leonardo but rarely found in other fossils include a beak (lower left), throat tissues, and shoulder muscle (labeled 3). M. Thompson/Phillips County Museum

The duck-billed animal–dubbed Leonardo by its discoverers–would have been about 7 meters long and weighed about 2 tons when it traipsed around Montana in large herds about 77 million years ago. The most complete mummified dinosaur to be described in 70 years, the fossil includes three-dimensional, mineralized casts of the animal’s right shoulder muscle, throat tissue, and skin.