as a huge fan of paleontology, that one borealopelta fossil makes me so fucking emotional. just look at this
this isn't just fossilized bone. this is a fossilized body. it looks less like a several-million-year-old specimen and more like a living, breathing animal that simply fell asleep.
also of note, this particular fossil was preserved in three dimensions, rather than having been flattened over time like the majority of fossils that you would typically find. a lot of specimens look more like an imprint than anything else. but this has depth, and volume. and its so detailed that researchers have been able to determine its skin color based off the compounds found on the surface.
idk it just really makes me want to burst into tears. so much of paleontology relies on making inferences from bones and a variety of trace fossils, and there are likely several details about prehistoric fauna that we simply don't know because they dont fossilize well, and fossilization is already an incredibly rare process as is.
for example, if spiders all died out before humans ever saw any, and all we had left were fossils, would we know they spun webs of silk? would the spinnerets be enough to tip us off?
there are so many things we still don't know about prehistoric life, and likely never will know because it wasn't preserved. can you imagine how many species we just don't know about because they never fossilized?
but here, with borealopelta, we have such a well-preserved specimen that it looks as though it could wake up at any second. It just makes me feel something inexplicable.
