Dinosaur with a Heart

Fossils, just fossilized bones right? Wrong, sometimes soft tissues are preserved too. These samples help paleontologists to better understand the physiology of dinosaurs. One of the most notable soft tissue discoveries was "Willow". Willow was a herbivore from the late Cretaceous known as a Thescelosaurus (the actual species type is unknown). Willow was significant to science because it was the first dinosaur discovered with an internal organ, a heart. After determining that the heart was present due to a high concentration of iron, CT scans of Willow's heart found that it had a "single systemic aorta" which are normally found in warm blooded mammals and birds. This suggests that Willow was possibly warm blooded which would be an amazing discovery in dinosaur evolution. Currently, Willow is exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh, NC. To read more about Willow visit... http://sites.naturalsciences.org/dinoheart/fastfacts/index.html

...or if you would like to see Willow in person you can visit the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science (http://naturalsciences.org/)

BBC also made a video shortly after Willow was found in April 21, 2000...

(video uploaded by BBCWorldwide)