So true. I've seen decapods from the Solnhofen, and when you look at them with a hand lense they're more or less worthless. I hope that this is better preserved--young dinosaurs can give us a lot of information about growth and development, which will answer many questions (and, fortunately, raise many, many more).The Article said:
Just wanted to mention, this is pretty standard. You see this type of preperation pretty frequently, particularly with these types of limestone. Prep work is done with microscribes, air scribes, and quite frankly old engravers we buy at garage sales (got one for Christmas last year!!!), and it leaves a bevel like that. In small invert fossil photos you can see the marks left by them, but at this scale they're more or less invisible. Once bone is exposed it's often coated in Glyptol or something similar, which hardens the bone just a bit (and is easily disolved by acitate, which almost never harms the bone or rock) and keeps the bone from flying off. Some still does, and one of the worst feelings you can have is watching a bit of your fossil go flying in some random direction while preping it, but for a fossil like this they'd likely have some pretty experienced preperatures working on it. You also don't want to get too far from the bone, because every piece of rock you take out weakens the slab. And while there used to be "accidents" pretty frequently, the rise of CAT scans, MRIs, and the like have more or less made those a thing of the past.Lithrael said:
You know that is really a silly question. tar and feathering has never been a Chinese tradition, yet we find Chinese dinosaurs with feathers, so the answer is obvious
Please think before posting in future
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