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American Museum of Natural History
Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 1
Lesson 2: How do scientists study dinosaurs?- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- How fast were dinosaurs?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- What was dinosaur skin like?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What were the biggest and smallest dinosaurs?
- Did dinosaurs fight?
- How did dinosaurs reproduce?
- How intelligent were dinosaurs?
- New research points to dinosaurs' colorful past
- New dinosaur research: Microraptor's feather color revealed
- Quiz: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Answers to Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
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What was dinosaur skin like?
Reptile skin is a complex system of scales separated by flexible joints. In birds, the only living group of dinosaurs, the scales are modified into feathers, except around the feet and beak. The hind feet of extinct dinosaurs probably looked like a bird's foot, but what about the rest of their body? Rare, non-avian dinosaur "mummies" provide intriguing direct evidence. One of these is the AMNH Edmontosaurus "mummy", one of the greatest dinosaur fossils ever collected. Impressions of skin are preserved over almost the entire body. Around the base of the limbs, on the neck, and at other joints, the skin is folded, like that surrounding the joints of an elephant, presumably to allow flexibility during movement. Classroom activity: Fossilized Fashion. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Want to join the conversation?
- If Dinosaurs are more related to birds than reptiles, Would be reasonable to assume that they had feathers?(5 votes)
- dinosaurs have been proven to have feathers. Animals like Velociraptor and Archaeopteryx had feathers. Scientists know this because imprints are left, and they decompose, leaving the imprint.(3 votes)
- how do you know what dinosaur skin is which(3 votes)
- Find the remain of the dinosaur that someone found with the skin impression.(1 vote)
- did you ever feel a dinosars skin yet(1 vote)
- Did dinosaurs' skin feel anything like snake skin does today? Or did it have a completely different texture? From what we know, of course. :)(1 vote)
- Among the Dinosaurs that had scales, the scales themselves were probably more like a bird's scales than a snake's.(2 votes)
- Where do you usually find the skeletons?(1 vote)
- Usually in erosional environments, like the Badlands in South Dakota, where there is exposed rock being weathered away, sometimes leaving little bits of bone at the surface where we can see them. But quarries and mines are also good places, since lots of digging happens anyway.(2 votes)
- what did dinosars skin fell like(1 vote)
- Dinosaur skin was very rough, bumpy and scaly.(1 vote)
Video transcript
Most dinosaur fossils are the bones
and the teeth of the animal and it's very rare when you get soft parts of the
animals like skin and muscles preserved it takes a very special environmental
circumstances but occasionally where you're in the right
environment, that lacks oxygen for the organisms that help decomposed the soft
tissues, you can get skin impressions preserved for dinosaurs and it shows that dinosaur skin was often
kind of bumpy almost scaly in a sense. Our best representation of what dinosaur skin is like is take a look at living dinosaur skin. iI mean the
foot on a chicken actually has scales and it appears, I think just like, what
the skin of most of the non-bird dinosaurs would've looked like. So it's
not tough and rough like you know most lizards or crocodile things, it's actually
very soft very very pliable and very elastic