Remarkably Preserved Dinosaur Fossil Reveals Ancient Camouflage and Display Strategies
Drumheller, Alberta – An exceptionally well-preserved fossil of a 110-million-year-old nodosaurid, unearthed in Canada, is providing unprecedented insights into the life and appearance of armored dinosaurs. The specimen,nicknamed Borealopelta,retains significant portions of its skin,armor,and even internal organs,offering a glimpse into the Cretaceous period unlike any seen before.
The fossil, discovered in the oil sands of Alberta, showcases a level of preservation rarely achieved for dinosaurs. According to research published in Current Biology, Borealopelta employed a elegant countershading camouflage strategy – darker pigmentation on its upper side and lighter on its underside - to blend into its environment. This suggests strong visual predation pressure from color-seeing predators like Acrocanthosaurus or allosauroids, which possessed potentially tetrachromatic or UV vision, similar to modern birds and reptiles.
“This large,heavily armored dinosaur possessed a countershading camouflage strategy,suggesting strong visual predation pressure,” the study states.
Despite its substantial armor, including dermal plates and enormous shoulder spines, visual concealment remained crucial for Borealopelta. Though, not all of its armor served a defensive purpose.Researchers found that a pair of large, recurved parascapular spines extending from the shoulders were lightly pigmented and even fluoresced under UV light, indicating a role in display, potentially for mating or species recognition.
“The distinct pigmentation and enlarged keratinous sheath of the parascapular spine suggest that this particular spine may have functioned more predominantly in display,” the authors noted.
The research team also observed a precise one-to-one relationship between the shape and position of the skin scales and underlying osteoderms (bony plates), suggesting a coordinated evolutionary system optimizing both protection and camouflage.
A related study, published in Royal Society Open Science (Henderson et al., 2017), modeled the dinosaur’s buoyancy and body mass, supporting the theory that the carcass floated for a period before becoming fossilized, contributing to its extraordinary preservation. The specimen is currently housed at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.
