Discovery of the Dinosaur with the Fossilized Heart

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Discovery of the Dinosaur with the Fossilized Heart

Dinosaur fossils are one of the few ways in which scientists can study the history of life on earth millions of years ago. Each new discovery is unique in its own way and provides valuable information about the past. No two finds are exactly identical; therefore, when dinosaur remains are uncovered, the possibility and excitement of new information or even a new species exists. Until the year 2000, no dinosaur has ever been found with a fossilized heart. Scientists at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences discovered a sixty-six million year old Thescelosaurus with a heart.

The Thescelosaurus was a “bird-hipped” dinosaur or an ornithischian ( Russell 2). This herbivore lived near the end of the Cretaceous period, about one million years before the conclusion of the dinosaur era. Thescelosaurus was about the size of a short-legged pony, according to paleontologist Dr. Dale Russell and was native to North America from Wyoming up to Alberta, Canada.

This particular Thescelosaurus was discovered in Harding County, northwestern South Dakota in 1993. It has been estimated to weigh nearly 663 pounds and thirteen feet long. The remains were located in a poorly consolidated channel of sandstone, exposed in the upper half of the Hell Creek Formation (Fisher 2). Scientists have named this discovery Willo, after the wife of the rancher on whose property it was found.

The discovery of Willo is unique because it is the first dinosaur with a fossilized heart. However, this was just the beginning of an extraordinary find. “Not only does this specimen have a heart, but computer enhanced images of its chest strongly suggest it is a four-chambered, double-pump heart with a single systemic aorta, more like the heart of a mammal or bird than a reptile,” according to Dr. Dale Russell. Russell is a paleontologist at North Carolina State University and a senior research curator at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. This discovery is unusual because all modern reptiles, except the crocodile, contain a single ventricle that pumps blood to the lungs and the rest of the body. All modern reptiles have paired systemic aortas developing from the ventricle, which distributes the blood to the body. “In contrast, the four chambered heart of modern birds and mammals has two completely separated ventricles and a single systemic aorta, ensuring that only completely oxygenated blood is distributed to the body” (Fisher 2).

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