The Soft Side of a Mean Dinosaur - Mark Armitage

To date, the Dinosaur Soft Tissue Research Institute (dstri.org) has published 7 papers in peer-reviewed publications on the characteristics of dinosaur soft tissue (dST). Most people are unaware of the presence and the very high preservation of dST still present in dinosaur bones buried just below the surface all throughout the Hell Creek Formation.

Folks are shocked when they learn that dinosaur bones are still bone and not rock, and that the soft tissue within them is the norm and not the exception. In this presentation, the Dinosaur Soft Tissue Research Institute will review our published findings (Cambridge University Press) from the Journal, Microscopy Today.

We will review our world-first findings of soft sheets of fibrillar bone, veins, vessels, cells and even nerves (full of lipids) in dinosaurs including Nanotyrannus, a fierce raptor-like dinosaur that some refer to as a juvenile T. rex. We will show that most of the bones we collect are full of blood clots revealing disseminated intravascular coagulation and hypercoagulopathy (yes, Google these).