They appeared in 2021 in a Canadian cliff. They could correspond to a rare complete dinosaur skeleton. There is one striking feature regarding its skin. The dinosaur with intact fossilized skin is a great opportunity for study.
Teri Kaskie was a volunteer field explorer. She noticed a strange protuberance on a hillside in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada. University of Reading paleoecologist Brian Pickles was leading the search. And he identified it as a hadrosaur.

Preserved fossil
Duck-billed hadrosaurs are herbivorous dinosaurs that were common during the late Cretaceous. They thrived between 75 and 65 million years ago. This one was four meters long, while adults could reach 10 meters.
Only its tail and right hind leg are visible. And its fossilized skin can be seen intact. “This finding is unique. It is because the exposed skeleton is covered with fossilized skin,” they explained.
There may be even more skin preserved inside the rock. It was pretty well preserved. It must have been covered quickly when it died about 76 million years ago.
“Probably, this animal died and was immediately covered by the sand and silt of the river. That is, it died because a river bank fell on it. With a bit of luck some of the internal organs could also have been preserved,” Pickles reported.

Detailed studies
It will take months of painstaking work to carve the block of stone containing the fossil. It will then go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. Researchers will work to carefully display the rest of the fossil remains. This process could take years. With any luck, they will find an intact skull. The dinosaur with fossilized skin may bring many surprises.
“Adult duck-billed dinosaurs are well represented in the fossil record. But younger animals are much less common. This will help paleontologists understand how hadrosaurs grew and developed,” Pickles concluded.