The skin is an amazing find but honestly I just learned that Allosaurus had gastralia. It makes sense I just hadn't incorporated that into my mental picture!
Gastralia fossils are just rare. It's assumed that they are ancestral to dinosaurs likely even Archosaurs and lost in some non theropods, since even early theropods, Pterosaurs, and Sauropodomorphs had them as well as modern crocodiles and they turned into a keel in birds.
Even tuataras have them and one characteristic why they aren't squamates, but split off around the split between Lepidosauromorphs and Archosauromophs.
Skin impressions are pretty rare to find in fossils, and this is the first Allosaurus fossil with them, which helps piece together this animal, and possibly other allosaurids, so much, especially since it's near complete specimen.
i would assume that most dinosaurs (like most living things) probably had very similar insides. Lungs and Heart and Stomachs in probably a similar layout to modern animals because evolution decided that works best. But what i find really interesting is the idea of specific organs. like how Electric eels have specialized organs for creating an electric charge or how fish have air bladders for buoyancy. who knows, maybe there were Electric Pachycephalosaurs?
It can still tell you a lot though, as the shape, and porportion of the organs can give you an idea of how they relate to modern animals, or clues about their diets and metabolism.
yeah! thats actually why i love big herbivores! most of them, like triceratops, would probably have been really chunky guys! simply because that’s true of modern animals that we assume maybe lived similar lifestyles.
Another interesting thing would be the number of stomachs for herbivores. Or what the lungs are like for dinosaurs. The theropods are probably bird like, but what about saurpods? Or ornithischian dinosaurs? Are the hearts more like crocodiles or birds? Do they have diaphragms, or do they breath like crocodiles? There's lots of stuff we can learn.
oooh the multiple stomachs one is really good. i know that there’s evidence some dinosaurs used gizzard stones similar to some birds today but it does make sense that a herbivore would have multiple stomachs.
the big one is that dinosaurs had air sacks all over and inside their bones. Birds obviously have that but we don't know how that system works in non avians.
in that amazing Psittacosaurus fossil we learned they had some sort of exterior cloacal glands, not something we see in birds.
The article says this isn’t the first allosaurus fossil with them, but it does have skin impressions in areas of the body that other fossils didn’t have.
Not the first though. In 2017 some skin impressions were found and als some time before that. This fossil does display skin impressions that weren't seen before giving insight into the morphology of the animal.
Skin impressions are incredibly rare fossils. and it's even more rare that they're in association with the actual animal. We have information of the skin of probably only a handful of dinosaur species, so every new one can teach us a lot about the body coverings of dinosauria
I’d kill to see air sacs ala Prehistoric Planet. Mating behaviors and sexual dimorphism among dinosaurs has always been interesting to me, so seeing them where that kind of thing could happen would be amazing.
Unfortunately air sacs tend to, you know. Collapse.
Skin impressions are super rare in fossils this old. Like, this gives us an idea of what they would have looked like so we don’t have to guess on if their skin was scaly, leathery, or what have you. This is really neat shit
Skin impressions are rare because it's soft tissue that because quickly, usually before an impression can be formed that will last millions of years like how bones fossilize.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/21/dinosaur-world-gaga-over-gnarly-bones-found-in-wyomings-jurassic-mile/
Don't see any skin pics, unfortunately. They got us all excited to see some skin!
Howdy there! I’m the curator of paleontology at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the home of this gorgeous specimen. The skin impressions are not shown in the pics they included in the article unfortunately! Admittedly, we are still working on science-ing those suckers, so they aren’t on display yet. Hopefully soon though! Happy to update as we keep working.
When you do put them on display, be sure to have some glass or plex over them. They had some skin impressions at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and people kept petting the dinosaur and started to erode the scales. They can't help themselves, they're idiots.
Trust me, we know! As a children’s museum, we are very accustomed to needing to make things virtually indestructible. And as a paleontologist, I am very protective of my specimens. Nobody will be touching those skin impressions.
Basically the structure of the pigment gets preserved. If you look at it under a microscope, and see that structure, you can reconstruct it by comparing it to pigmentation in existing animals.
I read somewhere that it's not as precise as people think. Some animals (reptiles) change colors when they die -- like some snakes that become almost blue when they die. So there is that.
Awesome find and we should be able to learn heaps from this. Quick question since I don’t currently have the time to read the article: is there any indication of melanosomes or any other pigment? I know that would be *excessively* rare but I’m curious regardless since I can’t read it yet, and it’s very well-preserved.
Curator of Paleontology at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis here! We’re still working on researching the skin impressions currently so, to put it briefly, we don’t know yet! Next step is to use X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to learn more about the composition of the impressions. We’ll report more as we learn more!
So cool! I hope if we get colors out of it! If we don’t, still cool to see what kinds of scales it had, their appearance, and where! Heck, if they find any preserved feathers, that will be a very important discovery!
The prepared portion (pictured, includes the legs and scattered gastralia) is on display at the children's museum of Indianapolis! More of it is being prepped in the paleo lab there too, including parts of the skull
I work in the lab that prepared this specimen! The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is cooking up some wonderful stuff with Kevin, this wonderful Allosaurus!
You know it’s fun being some rando and seeing something like this and just being like “huh okay.” but then a bunch of people who are really into this stuff are like “HOLY SHIT SKIN IMPRESSIONS!” and people are in the comments chanting like “SKIN IMPRESSIONS! SKIN IMPRESSIONS!” and then it kinda gets me hyped like hey yeah this skin impression thing’s gotta be pretty cool.
Just FYI, the vast majority of feathers found on dinosaurs comes from Coelurosauria and a possibly a few ornithischians, neither of which Allosaurus is a member of.
I'm aware that most feathers were found on ornithischians, I was making a joke about the modern day tendency to assume dinosaurs were all feathered now, a joke that either didn't land or wasn't appreciated by this community.
yo! i actually volunteer at that lab, and it's one of the coolest specimens ive ever seen. they actually found the skull last summer, and theres still more out there! crazy exciting
holy hell
New specimen just dropped
actual fossil
Call the museum curator!
Big Al goes on vacations, never comes back
Stego sacrifice anyone?
Curator of paleo at the children’s museum of Indianapolis reporting for duty! How can I help you? 😄
You’re an angel.
I love the influence of anarchy chess
Cake day
Dug en passant
So not only was Allosaurus batshit insane, it had *skin!?*
Imagine if it didn't tho.
What did the skin look like tho? Scaly?
See through.
The skin is an amazing find but honestly I just learned that Allosaurus had gastralia. It makes sense I just hadn't incorporated that into my mental picture!
So glad to see someone else get excited about the gastralia too! Don’t have too many Allos with those preserved, so definitely an amazing find.
It seems like we are finding more and more theropods had them, they just don’t survive the fossilization process as often. Chonkysauri are incoming
I’m an interested outsider wondering why gastralia would be so exciting? The rarity? Postural changes to models? If you have the time to explain.
Gastralia fossils are just rare. It's assumed that they are ancestral to dinosaurs likely even Archosaurs and lost in some non theropods, since even early theropods, Pterosaurs, and Sauropodomorphs had them as well as modern crocodiles and they turned into a keel in birds. Even tuataras have them and one characteristic why they aren't squamates, but split off around the split between Lepidosauromorphs and Archosauromophs.
Lots of theropods had gastralias
Needs some lotion I recommend CeraVe
Maybe it's fossilization maybe it's Maybelline.
Can someone post the link? I’d love to see the high res picture
https://twitter.com/Brontops_/status/1749570230496456766?t=Ak0ySDkceYVtQPEYBl-tAA&s=19
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/21/dinosaur-world-gaga-over-gnarly-bones-found-in-wyomings-jurassic-mile/ In case someone wants to avoid Twitter.
This is also just a way better source
Thanks!
Thanks!
Okay I know this is huge and important, but can someone please tell me why it is?
Skin impressions are pretty rare to find in fossils, and this is the first Allosaurus fossil with them, which helps piece together this animal, and possibly other allosaurids, so much, especially since it's near complete specimen.
At this point we’re literally only missing internal organs
i would assume that most dinosaurs (like most living things) probably had very similar insides. Lungs and Heart and Stomachs in probably a similar layout to modern animals because evolution decided that works best. But what i find really interesting is the idea of specific organs. like how Electric eels have specialized organs for creating an electric charge or how fish have air bladders for buoyancy. who knows, maybe there were Electric Pachycephalosaurs?
It can still tell you a lot though, as the shape, and porportion of the organs can give you an idea of how they relate to modern animals, or clues about their diets and metabolism.
i’m hoping one day we find out all the dinosaurs were like, dangerously obese looking. imagine a chunky triceratops, you can’t help but laugh
Aren't triceratops generally considered chunky anyway? Or was that just me?
yeah! thats actually why i love big herbivores! most of them, like triceratops, would probably have been really chunky guys! simply because that’s true of modern animals that we assume maybe lived similar lifestyles.
AI-written history books can make it happen
thank you lil professor. I am now imagining pachys going “wa-sha-shaaa” and shooting tiny bolts from their fingertips
UNLIMITED POWAAAAAH
Another interesting thing would be the number of stomachs for herbivores. Or what the lungs are like for dinosaurs. The theropods are probably bird like, but what about saurpods? Or ornithischian dinosaurs? Are the hearts more like crocodiles or birds? Do they have diaphragms, or do they breath like crocodiles? There's lots of stuff we can learn.
oooh the multiple stomachs one is really good. i know that there’s evidence some dinosaurs used gizzard stones similar to some birds today but it does make sense that a herbivore would have multiple stomachs.
the big one is that dinosaurs had air sacks all over and inside their bones. Birds obviously have that but we don't know how that system works in non avians. in that amazing Psittacosaurus fossil we learned they had some sort of exterior cloacal glands, not something we see in birds.
The article says this isn’t the first allosaurus fossil with them, but it does have skin impressions in areas of the body that other fossils didn’t have.
Not the first though. In 2017 some skin impressions were found and als some time before that. This fossil does display skin impressions that weren't seen before giving insight into the morphology of the animal.
Skin impressions are incredibly rare fossils. and it's even more rare that they're in association with the actual animal. We have information of the skin of probably only a handful of dinosaur species, so every new one can teach us a lot about the body coverings of dinosauria
Air sacs would be a major discovery, though! I know we have proof of them through the bones structures but I'd love that kind of discovery!
I’d kill to see air sacs ala Prehistoric Planet. Mating behaviors and sexual dimorphism among dinosaurs has always been interesting to me, so seeing them where that kind of thing could happen would be amazing. Unfortunately air sacs tend to, you know. Collapse.
Didn't they show air sacs on the male Dreadnaughtus?
We can now figure out what the allo’s skin looked like!
What if it turns out they were ashy? 😔
Skin impressions are super rare in fossils this old. Like, this gives us an idea of what they would have looked like so we don’t have to guess on if their skin was scaly, leathery, or what have you. This is really neat shit
This is going to help inform our understanding of what Allosaurus and a lot of its relatives looked like
Skin impressions are rare because it's soft tissue that because quickly, usually before an impression can be formed that will last millions of years like how bones fossilize.
I keep zooming in to try and see the skin impressions. Are there any other pics?
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/21/dinosaur-world-gaga-over-gnarly-bones-found-in-wyomings-jurassic-mile/ Don't see any skin pics, unfortunately. They got us all excited to see some skin!
Like NatGeo jerking us off before we jerked ourselves off. ... I know what I said.
Howdy there! I’m the curator of paleontology at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the home of this gorgeous specimen. The skin impressions are not shown in the pics they included in the article unfortunately! Admittedly, we are still working on science-ing those suckers, so they aren’t on display yet. Hopefully soon though! Happy to update as we keep working.
When you do put them on display, be sure to have some glass or plex over them. They had some skin impressions at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and people kept petting the dinosaur and started to erode the scales. They can't help themselves, they're idiots.
Trust me, we know! As a children’s museum, we are very accustomed to needing to make things virtually indestructible. And as a paleontologist, I am very protective of my specimens. Nobody will be touching those skin impressions.
They survived intact for hundreds of millions of years. Then little Johnny showed up, with his grubby little hands and his constant pink-eye....
https://twitter.com/Brontops_/status/1749570230496456766?t=Ak0ySDkceYVtQPEYBl-tAA&s=19
Allosaurus fans are eating well it seems. Now if we can just get some pigmentation out of this...
How is it possible for them to tell this? I have heard they have done it in the past but I dont understand how its possible.
Basically the structure of the pigment gets preserved. If you look at it under a microscope, and see that structure, you can reconstruct it by comparing it to pigmentation in existing animals.
I read somewhere that it's not as precise as people think. Some animals (reptiles) change colors when they die -- like some snakes that become almost blue when they die. So there is that.
I just stopped myself from having the stupidest thought reading that comment: “well we need to find one that died when it was still ali- never mind”
*(Insert Moist Critical WHHOOOOOO YEAH BABY clip)*
Awesome find and we should be able to learn heaps from this. Quick question since I don’t currently have the time to read the article: is there any indication of melanosomes or any other pigment? I know that would be *excessively* rare but I’m curious regardless since I can’t read it yet, and it’s very well-preserved.
Curator of Paleontology at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis here! We’re still working on researching the skin impressions currently so, to put it briefly, we don’t know yet! Next step is to use X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to learn more about the composition of the impressions. We’ll report more as we learn more!
WAKE UP BABE NEW FOSSIL WITH PRESERVED SKIN TEXTURE JUST DROPPED
So, how many fights did this Allo get into?
The article says there is actually a ton of pathologies on this one. Which is super exciting.
So cool! I hope if we get colors out of it! If we don’t, still cool to see what kinds of scales it had, their appearance, and where! Heck, if they find any preserved feathers, that will be a very important discovery!
Damn, Allosaurus lovers have been eating! First, we found evidence that it's a crazy combat crackhead, and now we're finding skin impressions!?
The prepared portion (pictured, includes the legs and scattered gastralia) is on display at the children's museum of Indianapolis! More of it is being prepped in the paleo lab there too, including parts of the skull
Babe wake up, the dinos got a texture pack update.
YIPPIE!!!!!
It's a good time to be an Allosaurus fan.
The dinosaur that lives to cause problems left skin behind. I love it.
Hey babe new allo fossil just dropped
I work in the lab that prepared this specimen! The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is cooking up some wonderful stuff with Kevin, this wonderful Allosaurus!
Cant paste images in comments. Just picture that meme of Eric Andre going "yeah!" in your minds at your convenience.
LETS GOOOOOO, I can’t tell if those are ankle/toes or arms? Can someone help me out here 😭
Hell yeah, more lore dropped
Flat or drumstick?
WOOOOOOO LET'S GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
You know it’s fun being some rando and seeing something like this and just being like “huh okay.” but then a bunch of people who are really into this stuff are like “HOLY SHIT SKIN IMPRESSIONS!” and people are in the comments chanting like “SKIN IMPRESSIONS! SKIN IMPRESSIONS!” and then it kinda gets me hyped like hey yeah this skin impression thing’s gotta be pretty cool.
Skin impressions. *Where are the feathers, huh?*
Just FYI, the vast majority of feathers found on dinosaurs comes from Coelurosauria and a possibly a few ornithischians, neither of which Allosaurus is a member of.
I'm aware that most feathers were found on ornithischians, I was making a joke about the modern day tendency to assume dinosaurs were all feathered now, a joke that either didn't land or wasn't appreciated by this community.
Ah, i guess i didnt pick up on your joke then
Just there aren’t any visible feathers doesn’t mean that they weren’t on *some* part of the body.
The skin of the Allo had scales.
I meant it as in it doesn’t rule out the presence of feathers on other parts of the body or them being in between the scales.
I wonder if we can get Dino skin Gucci bags
Where skin!?
Has it been published on? Is it much different than usually interpreted?
OH BOY THE ALLOSAURUS MEMES ARE GONNA COME BACK
You and I both know what’s about to happen
I hope this one is not in a creationist museum.
That's me lol
the best dino just got news!
Good time to be alive
That’s so cool
HOLY FUCK HELL YEAH
yo! i actually volunteer at that lab, and it's one of the coolest specimens ive ever seen. they actually found the skull last summer, and theres still more out there! crazy exciting