Trachodon mummy
Encyclopedia
Trachodon
Trachodon is a dubious genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur based on teeth from the Campanian-age Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of Montana, U.S.A...
mummy is a very well preserved fossil of Edmontosaurus
Edmontosaurus
Edmontosaurus is a genus of crestless hadrosaurid dinosaur. It contains two species: Edmontosaurus regalis and Edmontosaurus annectens. Fossils of E. regalis have been found in rocks of western North America that date from the late Campanian stage of the Cretaceous Period 73 million years ago,...
annectens, a duckbilled dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
. It was found by Charles Hazelius Sternberg
Charles Hazelius Sternberg
Charles Hazelius Sternberg , was an American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist. His older brother, Dr. George M. Sternberg was a military surgeon assigned to Fort Harker near Ellsworth, Kansas and brought the rest of Sternberg family to Kansas to live on his ranch about 1868...
and his three sons near Lusk, Wyoming
Lusk, Wyoming
Lusk is a town in Niobrara County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,447 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Niobrara County. The town was laid out in June 1886 by engineers working on the Wyoming Central Railway. It was named after Frank S...
, USA in 1908. Although Sternberg was working under contract to the British Museum of Natural History, Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. ForMemRS was an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenicist.-Early life and career:...
of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
managed to secure the mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
for $2,000.
The mummy
Osborn's description
In 1912, Osborn came up with a description of the fossil and a theory to its mummification:
"After a natural death (in other words, not death by predators) the body lay exposed to the sun for a long time, perhaps on a sand bar or in a stream. The muscles and soft internal tissues became completely dried and shrunken while the skin, hardened and leathery, shrank around the limbs and was drawn down along the bones. In the stomach and abdominal areas the skin was drawn within the body cavity, while along the sides of the body and on the arms, it was formed into creases and folds. At some later date, the "mummy" may have been caught in a sudden flood and carried downstream and rapidly buried in fine sand and clay. A cast, or impression, of the skin formed in the sand before the skin and other soft parts decayed. There is no remnant of the actual skin preserved only its imprint."
See also
- Malta, MontanaMalta, MontanaMalta is a city in and the county seat of Phillips County, Montana, United States, located at the intersection of U.S. Routes 2 and 191. The population was 2,120 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, where mummified BrachylophosaurusBrachylophosaurusBrachylophosaurus was a mid-sized member of the hadrosaurid family of dinosaurs. It is known from several skeletons and bonebed material from the Judith River Formation of Montana and the Oldman Formation of Alberta, living about 76.5 million years ago....
"Leonardo" was discovered