In March 2011, Shaw Funk, operator of Suncor Energy’s Millennium mine in Fort McMurray, Canada, made excavations on the banks of a great river. Shaw Funk then found a dinosaur fossil touted as the best state fossil in the world.

“We knew right away that the fossil was going to be something great,” said Don Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. detikINET which quotes the Guardian.

It is known that the fossil, which received the name Borealopelta Markmitchel, was previously believed to be a nodosaurus-like dinosaur. In 2017, the reconstructed fossil was exhibited by the Canadian Museum.

“Usually when we find dinosaur fossils, we just have skeletons, bones. We have to use our imagination to reconstruct what they looked like,” said Caleb Brown, a researcher at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Alberta.

“In this case, we are very lucky because not only the bone, we have all the armor in the carapace, the osteoderm is preserved, we also have all the skin preserved in three dimensions,” he said. for follow-up.

At first glance, the Borealopelta Markmitchel fossil really does look exactly like the dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago. The fossil manifests as a giant herbivore with claws on its skin that are useful for protection.

However, curator of paleontology at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria Arbor, believes that the nails were not only used for self-defense, but also to fight and fight for the status of their species.

“It can also be a signal to your partner that you’re healthy,” he said.

Additionally, the researchers were also able to trace the food content in the stomach of the fossil. The nodosaur is believed to have been swept out to sea because it was swept away by a flood while eating trees.

After sinking, researchers believe the nodosaur created an impact crater that quickly deposited sediment.

“Because it was buried so quickly, there was nothing for the animal to salvage and it didn’t decay much before becoming a fossil,” Brown said.

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