Recently Dr. Johan
Lindgren of the University of
Lund, Sweden visited our lab to look at our
mosasaur collection. He has just published a paper with colleagues on soft tissue preservation in the
mosasaur Platecarpus from western Kansas, available
here. I had noticed some non-descriptive"smears" around the skull of our
Tylosaurus nepaeolicus specimen "Tracie"
RMDRC 08-002 while preparing it, and thought it warranted further investigation. We removed the specimen temporarily from display and I brought it into the clean room for further preparation. This was important so that I could shut off the lights. Why on earth would I want to do that?
Simple: The
phosphatized remains of
mosasaur skin will glow under
blacklight! They are much more visible than under natural light and it makes preparation easier.
Preparation was fairly difficult, but we may have discovered the first skin preserved from the head region of a Tylosaurus ever. I'm currently writing a paper on the preparation techniques involved, so stay tuned for updates soon!
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