Fossil Of New Dinosaur Species Shows Life-Like Detail Of Creature's Armor

NEW YORK, NY — When Shaun Funk, a machine operator at the Suncor Millennium Mine in Alberta, Canada, chanced upon some bizarrely shaped rocks in 2011, he knew it was a significant enough find to notify the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. What he probably didn't know, though, was that he had come across a yet-unknown species of dinosaur, preserved in an unprecedented level of detail.

"Finding the remains of an armored dinosaur that was washed far out to sea was [a] huge surprise," said Donald Henderson, a curator of dinosaurs at the museum. "The fact that it was so well preserved was an even bigger surprise."

The newly discovered dinosaur, known as Borealopelta markmitchelli, is a part of the nodosaur family. The fossil itself is 18 feet long, 110 million years old and depicts a "dinosaur equivalent of a tank" that weighed in at more than 2,800 pounds. It provides exquisite and fine-grained details of the creature's outer armor that researchers rarely get to examine.

"This nodosaur is truly remarkable in that it is completely covered in preserved scaly skin, yet is also preserved in three dimensions, retaining the original shape of the animal," said Caleb Brown, a scientist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.. "The result is that the animal looks almost the same today as it did back in the Early Cretaceous. You don't need to use much imagination to reconstruct it; if you just squint your eyes a bit, you could almost believe it was sleeping."

He continued: "It will go down in science history as one of the most beautiful and best preserved dinosaur specimens — the Mona Lisa of dinosaurs."

For five and a half years, the museum technician Mark Mitchell spent a collective 7,000 hours working on revealing the behemoth from its rocky surroundings — a task so expertly performed the species was named after him.

"This remarkable specimen illustrates just how unique and important the fossil record of Alberta is, and highlights the mandate of the Museum in the research, preservation, and education of these amazing resources," the museum's Executive Director Andrew Neuman said.

Lead photo credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Drumheller, Canada.