This is good news as we feared a sale may take a long time, delaying knowledge of this fascinating dinosaur ‘beastie’ further. But unfortunately for me and potential Raptor Mountain diggers, this has caused the landowner to halt further excavations of the site until further notice, forcing us to cancel our plans to dig in Montana this year. For those getting ready to jump in and come over this year my sincerest apologies. We had a great response from people keen to help dig dinosaurs this year and I can only hope you all stay in touch and we’ll be trying our hardest to organise something special for 2011.

I feel that I can do only two things right now, the first being to continue that free lecture as promised. Due to work committments I will have to make that in April, but will let everyone know here or by email the venue. Second  if you are going to be in the USA or still  keen to dinosaur dig this year let me recommend some people and places I know you will have a fantastic experience with… In Montana there are great dinosaur dig programs for a day or week at Timescale Adventures in the beautiful foothills and Cretaceous rocks of the Montana Rockies. Also for a dinosaur dig in the Jurassic period (big fellas – sauropods mostly) I can thoroughly recommend the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre. And in case you need another option I just noticed the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology is running a dig that the public can join in Wyoming in July and August.

So sorry again everyone, but let’s look forward to exciting news of the Julieraptor soon.

Problem is there is a portion of the front of the skull missing, so we need to properly excavate the site for the first time since 2002 and see what else we can add to the skeleton. Plus we may find other dinosaurs, possibly new to science, or we’ll find nothing at all. That is exploration! But there is a good chance we shall find not only extra pieces of Julieraptor but other fossils of Cretaceous life including fish, crocodiles, mammals and perhaps the rare but vicious raptor eating turtles that haunt that area of Montana ; )  The geology and depositional setting (’taphonomy’) of the Julieraptor site will also be surveyed and add valuable information to this fascinating specimen.

I am in discussion with a major museum to help run a volunteer program on the 2 week dig, so get in touch if you have enough money to head over there with me and join in for a significantly interesting time.

Back in the storeroom and prep lab we perused newly recovered bones just transported from the black soil plains. The bone quality wasn’t that good on many specimens at that time, which combined with hard concretions meant a slow preparation before it could be recognised what lay beneath. Still we conjectured away, with my recent experiences with sauropods in Wyoming being of a little use. But there was obviously going to be a huge and focussed effort to get the bones out and studied in decent time, and indeed a whole paleo-program was required to be developed. So it gave me great pleasure to see Scott and team’s details of three great Australian dinosaurs go public worldwide, includng a prime time TV documentary . If you want to dig dinosaurs in Australia this is the place to go! Check out the Australian Age of Dinosaurs digs website for details, and be a part of what will become a long line of dino-discoveries.

“Dinosaur Mummy Revealed!” DVD Available Now! A multi-media presentation about the discovery, digging and study of the Best Preserved Dinosaur in the World.

Mark’s entertaining and exclusive lecture includes:

- How to find fossils and dinosaur bones.

- How dinosaur fossils form, and why the western USA is a good place to look.

- How Leonardo was discovered, dug and prepared.

- What makes Leonardo special; fascinating insights from early studies.

- Extensive audience question and answers session.

Order by sending an email to members [at] dinosaurman [dot] com

Price US$19.70 plus $3 for shipping anywhere in world. Will be sent formatted for country of purchase.

Return if not 100% satisfied for full refund.

Cretaceous Cows Exposed! Not the real cows of course, but the habits and physiology of the wildly successful cretaceous dinosaurs the Hadrosaurs aka “Duckbills” are exposed through this video of legendary paleontologist Dr.Bob Bakker. Using a life-sized model of Leonardo, Dr.Bakker covers the latest in what we know about the habits and physiology of these large extinct creatures – from the food-stripping beak, through the gut workings, to the tip of the tail. An entertaining ride based on the latest discoveries with soft-tissue preservation. Thanks to Houston Museum of Natural Science.

The paper titled “Probable Gut Contents Within A Specimen Of Brachylophosaurus Canadensis (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) From the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation Of Montana” has just been published by Justin Tweet and co-authored by renowned coprolite(fossil-dung) researcher Karen Chin and others, in the earth history journal Palaios.

Abstracts from the abstract read “An exceptionally preserved subadult specimen (JRF 115H) of a hadrosaurid, Brachylophosaurus canadensis, from the Judith River Formation near Malta, Montana, contains abundant plant fragments concentrated within the body cavity. We examined the taphonomy of the carcass and analyzed the gut-region material to test whether the organic remains represent fossilized gut contents…”

“…..Most of the organics appear to be mm-scale leaf fragments. The most parsimonious explanation for the presence and composition of the gut-region material is that much of the plant fossils represent reworked brachylophosaur ingesta influenced by flowing water that entered through openings in the carcass and introduced clay. The evidence strongly suggests that the hadrosaurid ate significant quantities of leaves and processed them into small pieces. This study provides baseline information for analyzing other cases of putative gut contents in herbivorous dinosaurs.”

The Dinosaur's Last Supper; Gut Contents exposed under skin and ribs in preparation © M.Thompson

This is a cool piece of work and solid step towards preparing the gut contents of Leonardo for further study, although the usual ‘mummy enigma’ exists as to how best explain the observed features. The explanation for the high clay content is a little difficult to swallow and the food was sliced finer than Gordon Ramsay in a hissy fit, so it was not possible to get an accurate ID on the leaf fragments as accurate as the pollen grains. But that’s what happens with Leonardo; you are stopped just short of definitive answers because the simplest and most likely explanation is at the same time so rare and unlikely taphonomically. Yet there it is…begging to be explained.

One could (but I cannot) avoid pointing out this is a healthy movement for the intrepid researchers; raising their microscopes up from scattered chips of dinosaur poo to skirt the rim and thrust towards the fertile coprolite-spawning grounds of the gut and stomach. They had already found evidence of parasitic worms in the fossilised remains, and now the whole gut story laid out is the chocolate icing of the cake….

A Brachylophosaurus Family ©Houston Museum Natural Science

The documentary is timed to match the dinosaur with fossilised skin, soft tissues and gut contents going on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where it will be stationed as the centrepiece of the Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation exhibit running until early 2009.

Someone has already posted an excerpt from the documentary here Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy (Part 1)

In some ways it is the ‘coming out’ party for this amazing fossil that we have watched being prepared, poked and prodded since assisting with it’s discovery in Montana in 2000. And somewhat like it’s Egyptian counterparts, the dinosaur mummy has had it’s fair share of ‘curses’. Coming in to opening week, I believe a dedicated curator had to sleep with the priceless natural treasure during hurricane Ike’s assault on the city. But after 77 million years, you would think ultimately this fossil will survive most any storm.