In 2011, a mining operation in Canada revealed the immaculately preserved fossil of a nodosaur, from the bony plates on its back to the ferns in its stomach.
Julius Csotonyi/Royal Tyrrell Museum of PaleontologyThe Nodosaurus lived more than 100 million years ago.
Around 100 million years ago, an armored dinosaur known as the Nodosaurus roamed what’s now the western United States and Canada. Though it was as big as a hippo and covered in plated armor, it wasn’t nearly as fearsome as its size would suggest.
The Nodosaurus was an herbivore that feasted mostly on ferns. Scientists even know which species of plants the creature preferred, thanks to an immaculately preserved specimen that was unearthed in Canada in 2011.
The fossilized remains were essentially mummified, revealing the tiniest details of the dinosaur’s body. From its small head to its stomach — which still carried remnants of its last meal — the prehistoric beast seemingly looked just as it had the day it died.
The Nodosaurus, The ‘Knobbed Lizard’ Of The Cretaceous
The first Nodosaurus fossil was discovered by William Harlow Reed in July 1881. The scientific community was in the midst of the Bone Wars, a race between rival paleontologists to uncover as many fossils as possible.
Reed came across the remains in southern Wyoming, and they were later studied by Othniel Charles Marsh, who realized they’d come from an unknown genus and species. He dubbed the creature Nodosaurus textilis, with Nodosaurus translating to “knobbed lizard” and textilis describing the textured plates on its back.
The American Journal of Science (1921)The Nodosaurus fossils discovered by William Harlow Reed in 1881.
The dinosaur was between 13 and 20 feet long and weighed a little under four tons, about the size of a hippo. It was covered in osteoderms, or bony plates that coated its body like armor from head to tail.
The Nodosaurus was closely related to the Ankylosaurus, but it didn’t have a club at the end of its tail. With no way to fight back against predators, it likely crouched low to the ground when under attack to protect itself with its armor, similar to armadillos.
The few bones that Reed found gave scientists a general idea of what the Nodosaurus looked like. But 130 years later, a miner in Alberta, Canada, made a shocking discovery that brought the dinosaur back to life 100 million years after it first walked the Earth.
The Mummified Nodosaur Discovered In Canada
On March 21, 2011, Shawn Funk was digging with an excavator at Millennium Mine near the Canadian town of Fort McMurray when he struck something hard. He called over his supervisor, and the two men peered into the soil to see what it was.
“It was definitely nothing we had ever seen before,” Funk told National Geographic in 2017.
It was a nodosaur fossil — and it was almost completely intact. Scientists believe that it fell into the water shortly before or after its death and was quickly covered by sediment, which preserved its body for millennia.
ケラトプスユウタ/Wikimedia CommonsThe Borealopelta markmitchelli fossil on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
The miners called paleontologists, who rushed to the site to study the fossil. After a lengthy extraction process — during which the remains broke into several pieces — the dinosaur was transferred to Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum.
Researchers were stunned by what they saw. “We don’t just have a skeleton,” museum researcher Caleb Brown told National Geographic. “We have a dinosaur as it would have been.”
Paleobiologist Jakob Vinther echoed Brown’s awe. “[It] might have been walking around a couple of weeks ago,” Vinther said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The dinosaur was identified as a new genus of nodosaur called Borealopelta markmitchelli. Borealopelta means “northern shield,” and Mark Mitchell was the scientist who spent six years painstakingly chipping away at the rock surrounding the fossil.
Once it was fully revealed, the nodosaur looked as if it were simply lying down for a nap. Everything was preserved, from the spikes emerging from its shoulders to the spaces where its eyes had been. Scientists could even see bits of reddish pigment under a microscope, hinting at the dinosaur’s original coloring.
Most remarkably of all, its stomach was just as it had been when the nodosaur took its final breath.
The Last Meal Of A 100-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur
In a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science in 2020, scientists took a look inside the preserved digestive system of Borealopelta markmitchelli and found its last meal.
“The finding of the actual preserved stomach contents from a dinosaur is extraordinarily rare, and this stomach recovered from the mummified nodosaur by the museum team is by far the best-preserved dinosaur stomach ever found to date,” said Jim Basinger, a co-author of the study, in a statement released by the University of Saskatchewan.
The nodosaur had dined on ferns shortly before its death, and the leaves were so well-preserved that they could be compared to modern plants. The creature seemingly had a preference for soft plants and mostly avoided the conifers that were common in the region during the Cretaceous period.
Brown et al., Royal Society Open Science (2020)Plant cells from the stomach of the nodosaur found in Canada.
Scientists also found bits of charcoal, suggesting that the forest where the dinosaur was grazing had recently been affected by a wildfire. What’s more, there were gizzard stones in its stomach, similar to the type that modern birds swallow to aid digestion.
“When people see this stunning fossil and are told that we know what its last meal was because its stomach was so well preserved inside the skeleton, it will almost bring the beast back to life for them,” said Basinger, “providing a glimpse of how the animal actually carried out its daily activities, where it lived, and what its preferred food was.”
Today, the nodosaur found in Canada is on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. At roughly 112 million years old, it’s the earliest dinosaur ever found in Alberta. As such, it provides rare insight into what the region was like during the Cretaceous period.
But more than that, it stands as an extraordinary specimen that brings history to life.
“You don’t need to use much imagination to reconstruct it,” said Caleb Brown in a 2017 press release. “It will go down in science history as one of the most beautiful and best preserved dinosaur specimens — the Mona Lisa of dinosaurs.”
After learning about the Nodosaurus, learn 31 fascinating facts about dinosaurs. Then, discover what really killed the prehistoric beasts.
