Document text
Fossil find rocks science Photo by Jim Craven Fossil-hunter Mike Hammer, of Ruch, holds a casting of a skull from the Thescelosaurus he found on the banks of a dry stream bed in northwestern South Dakota in 1993. An examination of the dinosaur's fossilized heart, CT scanned at Rogue Valley Medical Center, appears to confirm that the creatures were warm-blooded. Until now, most scientists theorized dinosaurs to be slow, plodding, cold-blooded beasts. Ruch man digs up stonelike remains of dinosaur heart By WENDY SIPOREN RUCH -- It was 103 degrees on an exposed South Dakota bluff in 1993 when Mike Hammer and his son Jeff decided to take a break from digging up a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil and seek some shade. Already in their two-week dinosaur hunt they had discovered two Edmontosaurus (duckbill) and two Triceratops fossils in addition to the T-Rex, but what they were about to find would send shock waves through paleontology circles seven years later. Four cervical vertebrae were sticking out of the sand of a dry river bed, exposed by storms that pelted the area with 12.5 inches of rain in the previous two weeks. Hammer looked right and saw exposed foot bones. He looked left and saw a portion of the tail. "In an hour, we had the skull exposed," said Hammer, a self-described fossil collector and paleontological investigator, formerly with the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles. "I knew right off it was a Thescelosaurus." Hammer immediately was excited about the find because no other complete Thescelosaurus skull had ever been found. But he also was excited because the entire fossil was incredibly well-preserved. The body, which died 66 million years ago, still retained the fullness of life -- unlike some fossil finds that are just a jumble of bones. "It's three-dimensional," he explained. Normally, an almost complete fossil find like this would be disassembled -- all the rock surrounding the bones chipped away -- and the skeleton would be mounted with wire to mimic what it looked like when it was alive. Researchers at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences who purchased the fossil wanted Hammer to do just that. "The excitement was about the skull and the other anatomical features," he said. "They wanted to mount it." But Hammer wanted to preserve the entire fossil, including a rusty-colored rounded rock the size of a small melon embedded in the chest cavity. He was sure it was a heart. Hammer even tried to get the Walt Disney company interested in the 13-foot fossil -- called Willo in honor of the wife of a rancher who owns the discovery site in Harding County, South Dakota. "It would make a great cartoon character," he said. "The little dinosaur with a heart." But it wasn't until 1998 when Hammer met amateur paleontologist and family practice physician Andy Kuzmitz of Ashland that he could prove his heart theory. No other dinosaur heart has ever been found, and only a few fossilized internal organs have surfaced. Usually, dinosaur fossils bear no traces of soft tissue, which usually decays before it became fossilized. Kuzmitz says as a physician, his first response to seeing the rounded rusty form was to order an X-ray. The fact that he had previously X-rayed dinosaur eggs without finding anything interesting did not deter him. He first took the rock to Rogue Valley Medical Center where a CT scan revealed chambers in the stone heart. Later that year, when Ashland Community Hospital purchased a new CT scanner that could combine the images into three-dimensional pictures, new images were taken. "Obviously there are no experts on dinosaur hearts," said Kuzmitz. So he invited seven local cardiologists to a party in the radiology department at Ashland Community Hospital, hoping they could pick out some new features in the heart. After comparing the X-ray images and several dissected emu hearts provided by Kuzmitz, the cardiologists confirmed the two men's heart theory. Researchers at the North Carolina museum were skeptical at first. It took sending them the X-ray images in data form so it could be manipulated on a computer screen before they were convinced. "A good friend argued with me that it was a stomach and not a heart," said Hammer. "Now I get to say I'm right." Hammer believes the plant-eating dinosaur died on a sand dune and was mummified in extremely dry conditions. A brown halo in the rock surrounding the fossil bones in which you can see the creases on the skin of the dinosaur's hand is evidence of the mummification, he says. A flash flood soon after quickly buried the body along with a lot of organic material such as leaves, Hammer theorizes. The quick burial of the intact body accounts for how well it is preserved, he said. The find has added fuel to a hot paleontological debate about whether dinosaurs were like today's reptiles as originally thought or whether they were warm-blooded nesting animals like birds. Already scientists on both sides of the debate are using the new information to back up their theories. Yet to be analyzed is another round formation in the pelvic area, said Hammer. "This is just the beginning," said Kuzmitz. "There's going to be lots more pictures taken. Now they can do some science instead of just speculating." "I've given them something to argue about," said Hammer. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA