First-ever dinosaur brain fossil discovered

Image | fossil

Caption: It might look like a tiny rock, but it's actually dinosaur brain. (Jamie Hiscock)

Audio | Quirks and Quarks : The First Fossilized Dinosaur Brain Tissue Identified - 2016/10/29 - Pt. 3

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For the first time, fossilized brain tissue from a dinosaur has been identified by researchers. It is very rare for soft tissue to fossilize unless environmental circumstances are perfect. The fossilized brain - found on a beach in Sussex, England - is from an Iguanodon that lived 133 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous.
The study by Dr. David Norman(external link), a vertebrate paleobiologist from the University of Cambridge, found that the meninges, the exterior tissue of the brain, as well as capillaries, fossilized because the animal died in an acidic swamp-like body of water with low oxygen levels, conditions conducive to preservation. The fossil is about the size of a hardball, which confirms that dinosaurs had relatively small brains.
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