Dinomummy

A teenage boy is walking through the remote dusty hills of his uncle’s ranch in Hell Creek, Dakota, hunting for fossils. Just as he is about to go home empty handed, he spots not just a single bone, but a group of vertebrae clearly attached to a tail. Palaeontologist Phil Manning tells the extraordinary story of the fossilized remains of Dakota, a hadrosaur so well preserved that not only is its skeleton complete but its flesh and skin have remained intact with all its bumps and scales. Geochemists, palaeobotanists and mapping experts are called in to the site to discover how the dinosaur lived and died. Excitingly told as a palaeontological detective story, Manning describes the combination of dogged persistence, months of painstaking sifting of soil and rocks, and the high-tech battery of scientific equipment that allows microscopic samples to be analysed. Skilful use of computer graphics and photo manipulation enables you to view the site as it was 65 million years ago, lush with vegetation and populated by dinosaurs, as well as at the side of palaeontologists working on the site. An imaginative and inspiring story that shows how one boy’s passion for fossils and dinosaurs led to a major scientific breakthrough.