First fossilized dinosaur brain may have been found

have formed a bowl in which the brain collapsed, and the low-oxygen environment would have delayed the decay of the tissue long enough for it to become pickled in the dinosaur’s own bodily fluids.

“That was very fortunate, because it provided a template upon which minerals could then be deposited,” Norman said. Over time, the very bottom layer of cells was turned to stone, while the rest of the brain decayed away and was replaced by sediment and other material.

The scientists’ paper on their research is to be published in a special issue of the journal Earth System Evolution and Early Life dedicated to Brasier. “I hope he’s smiling now,” Norman said.

Other scientists aren’t so sure, including Mary Schweitzer, an evolutionary biologist at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science who has pioneered the study of preserved dinosaur soft tissue.

Schweitzer, who attended Norman’s presentation on the fossil at the SVP meeting Thursday, said she doesn’t think the researchers have sufficiently explained why the brain would have been preserved without the skull in which it rested.

“The idea that you can have a brain preserved without any kind of surrounding bone is really hard for me to accept,” she said. “And I think the other possibilities have not been eliminated.”