Day 8#: Borealopelta markmitchelli
Today's animal of the day is Borealopelta markmitchelli!
Image Credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum
Borealopelta, whose name means "northern shield, was a nodosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period in what is now Alberta, Canada. It was about 18 ft long, weighed 1.4 tons, and was covered in rows of armored plating and spikes that helped protect them from predators.
Photo credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum
The holotype specimen of this dinosaur was discovered in an oil sands mine near Fort McMurray and was remarkably well-preserved. It seems like the corpse of this dinosaur had somehow been washed out to sea, where it floated for a few days before it sunk to the sea floor and was quickly buried by sediment. This effectively mummified the body and helped preserve it for millions of years.
Image credit: Robert Nicholls
This specimen was so well-preserved that paleontologists were able to see what this dinosaur's last meal was! Its stomach contents consisted mostly of ferns, as well as charcoal, meaning that there had possibly been a forest fire where it had lived shortly before its death. It is possible that this Borealopelta had been eating charcoal to counteract the toxins found in the ferns it had eaten, which is something that many modern animals do as well.
Image credit: cisiopurple on Deviantart
Not only could paleontologists tell what this dinosaur ate, but they could also tell what color it was! The fossilized skin impressions were so well-preserved that paleontologists were able to look at the shape of the fossilized melanosomes inside of the skin. Melanosomes are the pigments that give animals their color, and no matter which creature they appear on, the same color will have the same shape. So, even though there was no actual color in these fossilized melanosomes, by comparing their shape to those of living animals, the paleontologists were able to determine that Borealopelta was a reddish-brown color with lighter coloration on its underbelly. This tactic has been used to determine the coloration of several other dinosaur species, but usually, these are small feathered dinosaurs. I believe that Borealopelta is the largest non-feathered dinosaur that we know the coloration of (at least for now).
