KGS Home > Earth Science Education
Dinosaur Ichnofossils—Unusual preservation and bite marks

• Dinosaur trace fossils. Martin, A.J., Emory University. Short descriptions with images of dinosaur tracks, trails, eggs, nests, tooth marks, gastroliths, and coprolites (fossil feces) from dinosaurs.

Unusual Preservation: skin impressions, and soft part preservation

• The Leonardo Project. Houston Museum of Natural History. Information about the mummified carcass of the duckbilled dinosaur “Leonardo.” This site offers information about the spectacularly preserved Brachylophosaurus and the methods used to examine various soft parts of this animal, including its last meal!
• Leonardo, Brachylophosaurus. The Judith River Dinosaur Institute. This site includes a series of cycling images of the spectacularly preserved Brachylophosaurus.
• Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue. MSNBC article, 2008. Description with pictures of possible dinosaur blood vessels found from a T-rex.
• Turbocharged dinosaur. BBC News, 1999. Description of Scipionyx, a small theropod dinosaur from Italy, which was found with incredible preservation of remnants of the large intestines, liver, and windpipe.
• Willo, the dinosaur with a heart. North Carolina Musuem of Natural Sciences. This site describes “Willo,” the Cretaceous, plant-eating, Thescelosaurus, which contains a structure in its abdomen that may be a fossilized heart. Quicktime videos provide 3-D rotations of the potential heart.  

Bite Marks

• Dinosaur bites. The Leonardo Project. On the Kids Page for the mummified dinosaur, Leonardo, this site contains several excellent images of fossil bone pathogens (bite marks and infections) that help to illustrate how scientists determine what dinosaurs were eating.
• The fossil record of predation in dinosaurs. Farlow and Holtz, 2002. Technical report that summarizes the evidence used to determine predatory relationships in dinosaurs, including references to fossil finds of famous bite marks and gastroliths, and images of famous bones with tooth marks.
• Tracking Dinosaur Family Values. Discovery Magazine.com. Online news article about a find of bones with two different sets of large and small theropod teeth and a separate find of large and small theropod tracks, which could indicate that mother theropods shared meals with their infants.
• Dinosaur Tooth Found in Flying Reptile’s Spine. National Geographic.com. Online news article about the find of a Cretaceous spinosaur tooth (possibly Irritator) in the backbone fragment of a small flying pterosaur, indicating that spinosaurs ate these flying reptiles as wells as fish (and possibly juvenile iguanodontids).
• Cannibal Dinosaurs. Geotimes. Online summary article about the discovery of some Cretaceous Majungatholus (a carnivorous theropod dinosaur) bones in Madagascar that have the bited marks of another Majungatholus, including an image of the teeth and bite marks, and an artistic reproduction of the canniabalism. The technical article was published by by Rogers and others in April, 2003, in Nature.
• Dinosaur Bones Reveal Ancient Bug Bites. ScienceDaily. Online news article about research on fossil Camptosaurus bones showing that beetles (family Dermestidae) were eating the carcass after the dinosaur died. The technical article was published by Brooks Britt of BYU in the journal Ichnos, May, 2008.

 

 

Return to Earth History
Return to Key to Earth Science Standards
Return to Key Earth Science Links-Alphabetical Topics List
Return to Earth Science Education Page
Return to Kentucky Geological Survey Home Page