According to scientists studying the amazingly well-preserved leg of the scaly lizard, the remains of the wreckage found in the fossil can be traced 66 million years back to the exact moment of extinction. The discovery of a specimen from the day the cataclysmic asteroid struck is a truly remarkable moment in history. The finding is so unlikely and historically significant, in fact, that Philip Manning, a professor of natural history at the University of Manchester, described the discovery as “utterly disturbing”. “The time resolution we can achieve at this location is beyond our wildest dreams,” he told the BBC. “This really should not exist, and it is absolutely incredibly beautiful. I have never dreamed in my entire career that I could look at something a) so limited in time and b) so beautiful and it also tells such a wonderful story.” University of Manchester graduate student Robert DePalma, who is leading the excavation, added: “We have so much detail with this site that they tell us what happened at the moment, it’s almost like watching it in the movies. You look at the rock column, you look at the fossils there and it brings you back to that day. ” The Tanis excavation site was the focus of the upcoming BBC Dinosaurs documentary: The Final Day with Sir David Attenborough. The beloved narrator and presenter will make a review of the fossils, which he has characterized as “a weak fossil”. In other dinosaur news, a new study has provided a new theory as to why Tyrannosaurus Rex’s hands were so short and hard. Spoiler: It wasn’t because it was cuter like that. Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.
