It's a blog explosion!

Our paleontologists have had such a blast sharing their doings with you that we've created a new HMNS blog - BEYONDbones - so that all our other kinds of scientists can share their news and experiences with you, too.

What's it like to raise a tarantula? How many stars, planets and other celestial objects can you see in the night sky this month? Can you make a backyard garden into your own private Cockrell Butterfly Center? We've got dozens of bloggers from all corners of the Museum who can't wait to share.

I hope you'll take a moment to check it out - and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

In other good news, the paleo team is headed back into the field this week, so we'll have more news and pictures of what they find for you soon.

Mummified dinosaur comes to HMNS

We're excited to announce that Leonardo, the famous mummified dinosaur from Malta, Montana, is coming to the Houston Museum of Natural Science this September for its world premiere display.

The fossil block, weighing 6.5 tons, reveals secrets that would not be evident from bones alone. For example, note the pouch under the throat – it may be a crop, to store food – a feature that also exists in modern birds. Photo by Grant Delin.

Leonoardo is one of only a very few big dinosaurs with preserved skin - and it covers 90% of his body. What makes him truly extraordinary is that his stomach contents - his last meal - are preserved. Until his discovery, scientists could only theorize what plant-eating dinosaurs ate. Now we know.

You can see video of this astounding fossil here. The link also includes photos of skin texture, illustrations of Leonardo in life, and more information about the exhibit and fossil.

In this Cretaceous scene, Leonardo calls to his mother, left. The foliage in this image – conifers in the background, ferns in the foreground – represents the types of plants found in Leonardo’s stomach. In the background, a tyrannosaur lunges at another Brachylophosaurus. Mural by Julius Csotonyi.

Dr. Bakker has been on the team that has been analyzing the fossil since 2002. According to him:

"Meeting Leonardo is a very moving, intimate experience. You will see every wrinkle and scale popping in the light, and then discover the internal organs of a creature that’s been dead for millions of years. You will leave convinced that these animals were very much alive.”

Leonardo is a young Brachylophosaurus, a two-legged, plant-eating duckbilled dinosaur, and is the first juvenile of this species ever discovered. He was approximately three or four years old when he died and would have been 20 feet long, weighing about 2,000 pounds. He was discovered on July 27, 2000 during the Judith River Foundation’s expedition in Malta.

The exhibit will also include an Ichthyosaur mummy with internal organs and four babies preserved inside and and the only mummified Triceratops skin ever found, which will also be on display for the first time.

The AP posted a short story on the exhibit, and the Great Falls Tribune did a wonderful feature this morning as well. There should be an article in the Houston Chronicle coming up soon. We'll post the link when it's live.

Discover the "X-Wing" Dinosaur - tonight on PBS

It sounds like the winning entry in Google's X prize, but "X-Wing" is actually just a very cool name for a dinosaur - also called the "Four-Winged" dinosaur and, more scientifically, the Microraptor - that sheds new light on the origins of flight.

It's got four wings. Which puts it in the running for coolest dinosaur ever. And it's the subject of a new documentary on PBS tonight, Tuesday 2/26 at 7 p.m.

If you miss it, you can watch the whole thing online starting Wednesday. Since it's a NOVA project, you can also find lots of interesting extras on the show's Web site - see fossils of the other creatures that lived alonside the Microraptor in Liaoning and experiment to figure out how microraptor used its second pair of wings. The Producer's Story gives interesting background into how they chose to tell this complicated story.

Visitors to HMNS might also remember seeing a Microraptor gui fossil and a fleshed-out model in the Liaoning diorama of Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, a recent special exhibition from the American Museum of Natural History.

So - coolest dinosaur ever? Or just a prehistoric ostrich? Check it out tonight and let us know what you think.

Who wouldn't love to be this kid?

8-year-old Rhys Nichols recently became the first to walk in the footsteps of a particular prehistoric plant-eater in over 160 million years. At least - he was the first one to realize it.

The 9-inch Iguanodon footprints he found are amazingly clear and well-preserved - you can check them out at the Daily Mail's story online, along with a cute pic of Rhys smiling and pointing to his clever find. Experts say that based on the size of the footprints, Rhys and his dinosaur are roughly the same size.

The story goes on to say:

"His only disappointment is that they are prints from a plant-eating dinosaur. He would rather they had been from one of the big meat-eating ones like a Tyrannosaurus Rex because they are his favourite."

With all of the extremely bright kids that come to our Museum and dream of finding dinosaurs, it is extremely cool to see one who's done it. Congratulations, Rhys - you may just have a new favorite.

Dr. Bakker's new book: Prehistoric Monsters!

Text copyright © 2008 Dr. Robert T. Bakker

Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Luis V. Rey

Dr. Bakker's latest book is out - and it's for kids! Well, I enjoyed it qute a bit, too - so maybe we should say it's for kids, and that kid inside all of us that still geeks out over 12-foot sea scorpions and the idea of Quetzalcoatlus zooming by overhead.

Prehistoric Monsters! tells the entire story of life on Earth - from the algae-rific Precambrian to Ice Age cave paintings. And manages to do it in just 23 picture-packed pages. It's a perfect introduction to pre-history for young ones - but the incredible illustrations by Luis V. Rey are a sight to behold for anyone. This preview doesn't do it justice - but you can check it out at any bookstore.

Speaking of geeking out - Dr. Bakker also talks about our Seymour dig program on the page that covers the Permian, right next to a Dimetrodon attacking and Edaphosaurus - both of which we've found evidence of at our sites. Woot!

Text copyright © 2008 Dr. Robert T. Bakker
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Luis V. Rey

(Thanks to Random House for allowing us to post these selections from the book.)

VIDEO: Nicole in 3D - CT scans of our favorite lysorophus

Recently, David wrote about the perils of being married to a paleontologist - mainly, that paleontologists tend to name things they discover after their loved ones. Sounds great! Some fossils - like Sue or Stan - are known all over the world. They're so famous, they only need one name - kind of like Cher. Who wouldn't want to be immortalized as a fossil?

Well...not every fossil is T. rex. And David's find happened to have some particularly unattractive characteritics as a species. If you missed it, check it out here and let us know what you would have done in his shoes.

In this case, David's wife now has the honor of giving her name to a particularly well-preserved lysorophus. And, the lovely people of MD Anderson were kind enough to give us a look at the inside of this fascinating fossil, through the use of the computed tomography (CT) scanning in their small animal imaging facility.

The cloudy red area you see in this video is the rock surrounding the fossil itself. The more defined, lighter sections show the fossil itself. As the image rotate, you can see the ribs and spine curling around. In life, it would have looked something like a pile of coiled rope, with each coil resting on the one under it. Stretched out, Nicole would have been about 18 - 20 inches long.

A Lysorophus closes in on its prey. (c) Robert T. Bakker

You can also see an vertical oval outline protruding from the main coil - it starts on the right, rolls around to the left, and then ends at the right again, it will be on the right of your screen. According to David, this is probably the skull.

Even cooler, this next video is in 3D - if you've got the red and blue glasses, this should pop right off the screen.

Enjoy!

Advqnced 3D Imaging and Movies courtesy of:
Luc Bidaut, PhD.
Director, Image Processing & Visualization Lab (IPVL) UT - M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX
lbidaut [at] mdanderson.org
Computed tomography (CT) performed in the Small Animal Imaging Facility (SAIF), UT-MDACC

Note to Eocene: You can fossilize, but you can't hide

At least not from the enthusiastic volunteers at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Almost every weekday, curator David Temple brings paleontology to life for the Museum's visitors. They can stand under the gaping jaws of T. rex or marvel and the sheer size of our Diplodocus - but only at David's table can visitors experience what it's like to actually find a fossil -and then try to figure out what it is.

Some days, he's got volunteers working on the sediments brought back from the Museum's dig site in Seymour. Recently, he's introduced a table full of Eocene-era sediments from the area around College Station, TX.

This week, we captured the experience on video. We hope you enjoy seeing these young minds at work as much as we do - and that you'll visit sometime soon to try this out for yourself.

In this video, David explains this particular project, where these fossils came from, how they ended up preserved so closely together, and how our volunteers are analyzing them.

Samantha, a young and very tenacious fossil hunter, shows us what she found. In the next video, David helps her identify it.

Todd is a patient, very thorough fossil hunter - here, he identifies several Eocene fossils for us, shows us how to use his tools, and lets us in on why he wants to be a paleontologist - despite David's vivid descriptions of what a hard, tedious job it can be sometimes.