(Image: PA/AP/INAH-Mauricio Marat)
No, this isn鈥檛 a prop from a remake of Jurassic Park 鈥� it is the elaborate, incredibly well-preserved tail of a dinosaur uncovered in northern Mexico 鈥� the first articulated fossil tail to be found there.
Palaeontologists from Mexico鈥檚 , who announced their find this week, believe it belonged to a hadrosaur, aka a duck-billed dinosaur.
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Despite spending 72 million years in the ground, the tail鈥檚 50 vertebrae are still connected. At nearly 5 metres long, the tail is slightly less than half the length of its original owner.
For the past three weeks, researchers have been delicately brushing away the sand and gravel that covers the tail so as not to damage it. The tail is destined to be shifted in parts to a more appropriate laboratory setting, where it will be cleaned and studied further before being put together once again.
鈥淭he main significance of this discovery is the location,鈥� says of the Natural History Museum in London. 鈥淩elatively little is known about Mexican dinosaurs. This is the most spectacular of a series of recent finds that are helping to fill in a relatively empty area on the dinosaur map.鈥�
It鈥檚 not the first time a hadrosaur has taken centre stage after turning up surprisingly intact. In 2002, a hadrosaur 鈥渕ummy鈥�, complete with stomach contents, was found. The first dinosaur 鈥渂lood鈥� sample was extracted from the pristine leg bone of a hadrosaur in 2009.
