Recapping the wild times of Phillips County's Leanoardo

As a relative newcomer to Malta, MT, one of the first things I learned about even before coming to Montana was of Leonardo the mummified dinosaur technically known as a Brachylophosaurus or duck billed dinosaur. Now that I’m here in Malta, I’ve taken time to do more Googling and, amazingly, there is tons of information about Leonardo including video clips of documentaries. The best documentary that I saw was called “Best Dinosaur Mummy ever Found Guinness Record” and you can find it on YouTube. It runs almost an hour, but goes through the whole history from his find in Montana to the current day exploration of his body by paleontologists and the creation of virtual videos and photos of the creature. There’s a fantastic article called “Dino Might” by Karen Moltenbrey in the July 2009 issue of Computer Graphics World. This article includes fantastic photos of digital images of Leonardo. There’s also an artist’s rendering of what Leonardo was believed to have looked like by artist Michael Berglund. Leonardo has been traveling in the United States, going to different museums for examination by world renowned paleontologists. He’s been through a lot of x-rays, had a 3D anatomical model created, had his stomach contents analyzed, he’s been imaged at NASA where it was revealed that he had been attacked when he was alive – ripping out ribs and a chunk of muscle.

Another documentary on him was created by the Houston Museum of Natural Science is called “Leonardo, the Mummified Dinosaur” and features Dr. Robert Bakker, a paleontologist who was invited by Nate Murphy to examine Leonardo when he was first found. In this video, Dr. Bakker gives a paleontologist’s view of how a Brachylophosaurus body works. Live Science videos on YouTube also has a video called “Finding Leonardo, Dinosaur Superstar” talks about the excavation process they went through to remove Leonardo from his resting place.

The latest news about Leonardo came from the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, where he was moved in March 2014. Dallas Evans, the lead curator for the museum has sent a video link to show us that Leonardo has been housed in their Dinosphere area and that 1.2 million visitors came through their museum in 2014. He is in plain view of people (see photo) and the display tells visitors that, because of Leonardo and the condition in which he was found, we now know a lot more about dinosaurs. There’s also a video of his opening day at the museum on YouTube called “Leonardo, The Mummified Dinosaur Opening”.

The Great Plains Dinosaur Museum has done a great job of placing Leonardo in locations where he can be seen by everyone and in facilities where they take great care to preserve him. If you want to find out more information, you can find a whole page dedicated to Leonardo and Dinosaur Mummies at http://www.dinosaurmummy.org. There is also a replica of Leonardo at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum and many other fantastic exhibits. The museum will be opening on May 1, 2015 and the hours are 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday and the curators and volunteers are very happy to provide answers to any questions you have!