Dinosaur-hunters unveil mummified 'Holy Grail' of paleontology

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Scientists revealed Monday a partly mummified dinosaur, complete with fossilized skin and muscles, whose discovery they said shed dramatic new light on the species that once roamed the Earth.

The remains of the duck-billed Hadrosaur were first unearthed in 1999 by a schoolboy in a fossil treasure-trove part of North Dakota called Hell Creek, and were brought to the attention of British paleontologist Phillip Manning.

Following years of research, Manning and his team unveiled the exceptionally well preserved "dino-mummy" at Washington's National Geographic Society, describing this sort of discovery the "Holy Grail" of paleontology.

"Paleontology is used to finding single bones. Occasionally we find a few bones together, articulated, but...