As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Paleontologists in China have actually found an almost total skeleton of a formerly unidentified types of iguanodontian dinosaur that protects incredibly detailed fossilized skin, consisting of structures unlike anything seen in other non-avian dinosaur fossils.
Life restoration of a juvenile Haolong dongiImage credit: Fabio Manucci.
Haolong dongi resided in what is now northeastern China throughout the Early Cretaceous date, around 125 million years earlier.
The brand-new types was a kind of iguanodontian, a significant group of ornithopod dinosaurs.
Evolutionarily, they sit in between little, early bipedal ornithopods and the later on, extremely specialized duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs).
“Iguanodontia were the dominant herbivorous dinosaurs in the majority of terrestrial environments throughout the Cretaceous,” stated Dr. Pascal Godefroit from the Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and his coworkers.
“The clade reached its zenith throughout the closing phase of this duration, as hadrosaurids– or duck-billed dinosaurs– topped a lot of continents.”
“The discovery of exceptional ‘mummies’ from North America and Mongolia exposed valuable info about hadrosaurid integument, which included a detailed and typically mosaic plan of tubercle-like and non-imbricating scales, with bigger tabular scales along their dorsal midline.”
“By contrast, less details is offered about the integument of more basal iguanodontians, with just separated spots of flaky imprints understood in Tenontosaurus Iguanodon and Mantellisaurus to recommend a scale pattern similar to hadrosaurids.”
Protected integumentary structures in the holotype of Haolong dongiImage credit: Huang et aldoi: 10.1038/ s41559-025-02960-9.
The fossilized skeleton of a 2.45-m-long juvenile Haolong dongi was recuperated from the Yixian Formation.
The specimen is impressive not just for the quality of its bones however for the splendid conservation of its integument, or external skin.
The fossil consists of overlapping scales on the tail and unique tuberculate scales on the neck and thorax– patterns that vary noticeably from formerly explained iguanodontians.
Many striking, nevertheless, are cutaneous spikes spread amongst the scales.
Utilizing innovative imaging and tiny analysis, the paleontologists discovered that these spikes are hollow and round, made up of an extremely cornified external layer over a multi-layered skin, with keratinocytes maintained down to their nuclei. At the core of each spike lies a permeable dermal pulp.
This anatomy sets the spikes apart from both the protofeathers discovered in some other dinosaurs and the flaky spinal columns seen in modern-day lizards, recommending an independent evolutionary origin.
The type and positioning of the spikes indicate they served mainly as a deterrent versus predators, though they may likewise have actually played functions in thermoregulation or sensory understanding.
“This discovery offers extraordinary insight into the microanatomy of non-avian dinosaur skin and highlights the intricacy of skin advancement in ornithischian dinosaurs,” the scientists concluded.
The discovery of the brand-new dinosaur types is reported in a paper in the journal Nature Ecology & & Evolution
_____
J. Huang et alCellular-level conservation of cutaneous spikes in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur. Nat Ecol Evolreleased online February 6, 2026; doi: 10.1038/ s41559-025-02960-9
Find out more
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
