Best Soft Tissue
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Leonardo, a juvenile Brachylophosaurus from the Late Cretaceous of Montana discovered in 2000, preserves desiccated skin and soft tissue across roughly 90% of its body and held a Guinness record as the best-preserved dinosaur mummy.
Scipionyx samniticus is a small theropod dinosaur known from an exceptionally preserved juvenile fossil discovered in limestone in southern Italy. Formally described in 1998, the specimen preserves impressions and mineralized remains of internal soft tissues, including portions of the digestive trac...
Dakota, an Edmontosaurus annectens mummy discovered in North Dakota in 1999, preserves mummified skin and muscle tissue that allowed researchers to estimate the animal's body volume and musculature more precisely than skeletal material alone permits.
Mary Higby Schweitzer is an American paleontologist and professor at North Carolina State University. She is recognized for her molecular paleontology research, specifically her discovery of soft tissues and original biomolecules preserved within dinosaur fossils. Her notable work includes the recov...
Jakob Vinther is a Danish paleontologist whose research examines exceptionally preserved fossils, animal evolution, and the reconstruction of coloration in extinct organisms. He helped establish that microscopic structures preserved in some fossil feathers are melanosomes, pigment-bearing organelles...
Maria McNamara is a paleontologist and professor at University College Cork in Ireland whose research focuses on fossil preservation, particularly the preservation of soft tissues and original color pigments. Her work uses experimental taphonomy and analytical techniques to reconstruct the coloratio...
Patrick J. Orr is an Irish paleontologist at University College Dublin, known for taphonomy work including a 1998 Science study of Burgess Shale preservation.
Softhead Grenadier (Malacocephalus laevis) is a deep-sea rattail of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans notable for its unusually soft, loose skin relative to other grenadiers.
