Well-preserved, thanks to just the right combination of conditions over 72 million years, a 16 foot (5 meter) long dinosaur tail has been unearthed by paleontologists in Coahuila, Mexico. Based on evidence, the excavation team believes that the tail could have been from a duck-billed hadrosaur, and they hope to locate more of the dinosaur’s body deeper underground. From Yahoo:
A group of locals discovered the fossil in June 2012. Paleontologists with INAH and the National Autonomous University of Mexico spent about a year surveying the area, and began their excavation on July 2…
Aside from providing a valuable addition to the world’s limited collection of intact dinosaur fossils, the team hopes their findings will help explain the mechanics of how hadrosaur tails moved…
Finding the remains of this web-footed herbivore in such good condition is rare, and will add to the information gathered from previous discoveries. Related hadrosaur reading should include Dakota, the 67 million year old “mummified” hadrosaur that was excavated in North Dakota in 2006.
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