Scientists examining rare dinosaur mummies from the badlands of Wyoming revealed a surprising detail about the external anatomy of the duck-billed dinosaur: the presence of hooves on its feet-a first for any dinosaur.
The two Edmontosaurus individuals, which lived until the last moment of the dinosaur age 66 million years ago, were a young adult approximately 40 feet long and a two-year-old juvenile about half that length.
It has been observed that the surface contours of the dinosaurs were preserved over the skeleton by a thin clay layer about one-hundredth of an inch thick that was formed after they died.
It is commonly difficult to reconstruct the appearance of dinosaurs and other extinct creatures because the shape of an animal’s soft tissue is only occasionally preserved in fossils.
While these two had sprawling areas of preserved external skin surface, that allowed scientists to reconstruct the dinosaur’s appearance.
In this connection, Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, who led the study published in the journal Science said, “We’re seeing the full profile of the dinosaur for the first time.”
The dinosaurs were not specifically the mummies in the sense of bodies intricately conserved in ancient Egypt for everlasting life.
The similar fossils were found a century ago in the same locale- though not thoroughly evacuated - and were dubbed mummies, and the term stuck.
Moreover, Edmontosaurus, which munched on plants with its broad, flat snout resembling a duckbill, roamed western North America alongside apex predator Tyrannosaurus, horned dinosaur Triceratops, and armored Ankylosaurus.
The discovery shows that a duck-billed dinosaur possessed hooves on its feet, and it significantly challenges and expands the understanding of dinosaur evolution.
