BREAKING: the mummified remains of a species, provisionally classified as 'Doug', were recently discovered on a British beach. From wound analysis on the remains, as well as coprolites found upon them, it appears that this individual met its end in unequal combat with a flock of gulls. An empty and mutilated chip bag, found near the fossil, seems to support this hypothesis.🤣
I can barely believe that something over 60 million years old ends up mummified, that is astonishing! Edit: Not a mummy at all as several people have pointed out, but the level of preservation is nonetheless exceptional.
If you think about it, perhaps the best time for a corpse to be left undisturbed, and buried fully intact would be right after the impact. It would have also been killing off most the things that would scavenged a body normally.
The term "dinosaur mummy" is very unfortunate, it confuses people outside the field and is sometimes used as argument for the young age of the earth by creationists. The thing is, it's just a name used for a certain type of fossils which are unusually well preserved, e.g. with skin impressions, sometimes even internal structures etc. Such things can happen when the circumstances of fossilisation are very favourable (quick covering by sediments, chemistry of the water etc.). But it's still a normal fossil, everything is substituted by minerals, it's just stone like any other fossil, only with more details of the animal preserved than usual.
@@toericabaker A mummy indicates that it is the actual bodily remains of the animal, like a mammoth entombed in ice. Dinosaurs are so old that there is nothing left of them, fossils are their bones basically turned into a rock cast of the bones they ONCE were. Mummies are the actual animal, fossils are (oversimplified) the animal turned entirely to stone .
@@marcgorter8651 It's call a "Jump Cut" and it's done for effect. If you lived in the 1980s and watched the music video "MTV" you'd be familiar with the 'why". It was considered "modern" back then, but now I think it has a comedic effect.
@@raylopez99 I wasn't around for most of the 80's, and the years I was I barely remember, unfortunately. Did the MTV jump cuts cut off people mid-sentence, though?
Until the end, I thought Doug got stranded on an island. Very quirky. It's cool to see evidence of a horn injury on the frill of Triceratops; I never could buy into Jack Horner's idea that these horns were only display structures. On a side note, he also said the same thing about Pachycephalosaurs' domed heads. I personally suspect that they were headbutters but, like with giraffes, they weren't necessarily aiming for the head but instead the body. The new skin impressions are also great, and I totally understand the scientists' frustration with the media; it's far from the first time they've inappropriately sensationalized new discoveries.
I always thought that too. Why should Pachycephalosaurs butt their heads into each other, when they can attack the soft parts of the body. Then the missing cushion mechanisms for the brain wouldn't matter as much.
@@obiwahndagobah9543 Exactly. Just considering the thickness of their craniums, display alone cannot account for bone that dense. Even animals today that regularly lock horns and butt heads will aim for the body if given the chance.
That leg is astonishing! It looks like it confirms a lot of things that scientists have already theorised: the form of the legs and how much they represent birds. If I wouldn't know any better this leg could easily be created in a Stan Winston studio for the next Jurassic World movie. What I mean with that is that Stan Winston was already creating dinosaurs that look exactly like this before this fossil was even found! Astonishing how accurate those predictions/finds were without a mummy version to prove it and now here we are with that proof.
@@Jinx-z2g No. But according to evolution theories birds evolved from reptiles, dinosaurs that is, the avian kind. As a child I always found it paculiar how similar chicken legs were to the legs of my Jurassic Park dinosaur toys. I was 7 though, and didn't question it.
@@Leto85 are u 100% sure that that is true and no fallacies can come about it. Because different kinds of animals share some physical similarities with another kind, but that doesn’t make them “evolutionary links”.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 Well, they would do. After all evolution tends to come up with similar adaptations to similar environments. You didn't expect them to find a set of wheels, did you?
It sure looks like it died in a fire. Could be just a normal forest fire, or something volcanic. But if they truly found iridium dust all over it...wow.
So that fossilized leg and part of the flank seems to be a pretty good indicator that thescelosaurids at least were indeed scaly and not fuzzy as some had assumed.
@@dragonfox2.058 Nonetheless, we have little evidence of feathers of any kind in ornithischians. They are only known in basal forms like Kulindadromeus, and given the subsequent timespan of 100 million years and the overall diversity of ornithischians, later lineages such as thescelosaurids being entirely scaly is entirely plausible and this particular find lends support to that.
@@daliborjovanovic510 I mean just because the legs were scaly does not mean that it had no feathers after all birds have scaly legs but they still have feathers
@@gecko8621 But again, there is also no reason to FAVOR a feathered version either. We have evidence of scales, at least on the leg, but we have no evidence of feathers anywhere on the body. I favor my reconstructions to lean towards tangible evidence.
I can't tell you how many times I've said out loud "you guys are such goofballs." It's so hysterical juxtaposed with the very serious tone of the science news.
where is Doug's suit.......... there is something very strange going on here. I'm thinking that Doug is stuck in some type of temporal anomaly, you must do everything you can to save him Ben !
Lately everyone makes sure to say non-avian dinosaurs as being the ones wiped out by the extinction but in reality, even the majority of the avian dinosaurs died. It wiped out almost all life and of the avians that did make it to become birds, it was still only a fraction of the total avian dinosaurs to survive.
I love the fact that we keep finding new species of dinosaurs to learn about, I am glad that paleontology is not going extinct, I be devastated if it does. Thank you Ben for making this video I love it.
The channel is starting a new ARG as evident by the intro. Where was Doug this time? Was it on a beach in Wales / England? A beach on South Wales / Australia? A beach at some convoluted other area with the name Wales of which there are plenty. Reddit detectives are already combining their forces...
How lucky you have to be find not one, but TWO skin fossils in the same site AND an embryo as well? Too lucky, probably, so I understand your concerns over the seriousity of these finding ...
Well, the occurrence of rare fossils together might just mean that in this place there were some exceptional preservational conditions. Therefore it wouldn't be luck to find all those things nearby, just to have such a place to explore altogether.
Extremely interesting, just take a minute to think about the events that unfolded for this to be possible, the chances are astronomically small, first it would have to be in a hot dry place to begin natural mummification, also had to avoid being scavenged by other dinosaures, and then become buried at a later point to begin the fossilisation process, then avoid being damaged in natural disasters over the eons to finally be discovered 65 million years later in near perfect condition, absolutely incredible
Fossils are difficult to reconcile as being true representations of animals that lived so many millions of years ago. Doug seems to be transitioning to the "Python Zone". Great stuff! Thanks!
While there is definitely a problem with the way early media reporting on fossil finds can potentially spread misinformation, I think that phenomena is outweighed by the benefits of getting more widespread attention into the fruits of paleontological work.
Please don't ever stop doing these videos! They are consistently filled with incredible paleontological information and your delivery of this information is superb. Thank you for giving us all 7 days of incredible science!! The Thescelosaurus leg is an absolutely incredible find! Maybe they get lucky and find some other fossils in that area which they can also trace their deaths to that timeframe. If they found fish and an impaled turtle, maybe there are more unfortunate individuals to be found in that area.
As a child I always wanted to see dinos in the flesh dead or not and the closest I ever got was that one picture of the ostrich-like bird foot, until I saw an edmonntosauurs foot, feahers in embryos, baby mammoth and now these.
I love the mix between very serious science and mistimed off beat jump cuts. I feel like I go back in time to a better day, where that sarcasm is considered prehistoric compared to modern methods. Back to you Be(insert outro)