In some truly exciting dinosaur-related news the best-preserved fossil ever found was unveiled this week.
The truly ground-breaking discovery was made back in 2011, when miner Shawn Funk (great name), accidentally excavated the remains of a dinosaur that is believed to be more than 110 million years old.
It’s not known how the land-dwelling, plant-eating nodosaur died all those years ago, but it somehow managed to end up at the bottom of an ancient sea, National Geographic reports.
When it was unearthed it was in miraculously good nick as the minerals surrounding it turned the body into a fossil.
As soon as scientists saw the specimen, they knew they had found something truly remarkable as it turned out to be the best-preserved fossil of its kind.
Don Brinkman, director of preservation and research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta described the dinosaur mummy as ‘exceptional’.
While Michael Greshko, writing for National Geographic, said the level of preservation ‘is a rare as winning the lottery.’
According to the Smithsonian, the nodosaur is a ‘member of the heavily-armored ankylosaur subgroup,’ that existed during Cretaceous Period.
This group of herbivores apparently resembled a cross between a lizard and a lion, but covered in armoured scales- which sounds fucking terrifying to be honest.
This particular nodosaur will be the centrepiece of a new exhibit of fossils recovered from Alberta’s industrial sites.
And the public will now get the opportunity to marvel at the wonders of a fossil which has defied the ravages of time.
