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b'This week we have a two-ghost rating for our episode about dinosaur mummies! It\'s a little spooky because we talk about mummies, but it\'s mostly an episode about dinosaurs, which are not spooky.\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nThe lost Tarbosaurus mummy\\n\\nDinosaur Mummy Found with Fossilized Skin and Soft Tissues\\n\\nDakota the Dinomummy: Millenniums in the Making\\n\\nSpectacularly Detailed Armored Dinosaur "Mummy" Makes Its Debut\\n\\nWas a Dinosaur Mummy Dubbed \'Appalachiosaurus\' Found in Tennessee?\\n\\nAn Edmontosaurus mummy found in 1908:\\n\\n\\n\\nA 3D model of Dakota\'s skin [photo from third link above]:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Nodosaurid ankylosaur mummy:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nIt\\u2019s monster month and this week we\\u2019ve got a monster from ancient times\\u2014really ancient times. We\\u2019re talking about mummies today, DINOSAUR mummies! On our spooky scale, this one rates two ghosts out of five since we do talk about mummies, but it\\u2019s not too spooky because we mostly talk about dinosaurs!\\n\\nA dinosaur named Tarbosaurus lived around 70 million years ago in what is now Mongolia. It was probably closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex and would have looked very similar, with a big strong body but teeny-tiny front legs. Its front legs were even smaller than T. rex\\u2019s in relation to its body. It grew up to about 33 feet long, or 10 meters, and probably stood about 10 feet high at the hip, or 3 meters, and its big head had a big mouth full of really big teeth. It probably killed and ate hadrosaurs, sauropods, and other big dinosaurs. Some scientists think it was so closely related to T. rex that it should be classified as another species in the genus Tyrannosaurus.\\n\\nWe have quite a few Tarbosaurus fossils, including some very well-preserved skulls, so we know quite a bit about it. It had a good sense of smell and good hearing, but its vision wasn\\u2019t all that great. Some paleontologists think it might have been nocturnal. We\\u2019ve also found lots of bones of big dinosaurs with bite marks from teeth the size and shape of Tarbosaurus\\u2019s.\\n\\nIn 1991, though, a team of scientists found something even more incredible. They found a partial skeleton of a Tarbosaurus with lots of skin impressions. In short, they\\u2019d sort of found a mummified dinosaur. (It\\u2019s not really a mummy.)\\n\\nThe mummy consisted of the back end of the dinosaur, including the pelvis, tail, and hind legs. It had fallen onto sandy sediment that was especially fine-grained, so when the sediment transformed into sandstone over many millennia, it retained an exceptionally clear impression of the skin, including every small pebbly scale.\\n\\nThe expedition members took pictures and measurements, but they didn\\u2019t collect the specimen. Another expedition returned to the area to do so in 1993, but by then the specimen was gone. It was probably stolen by fossil poachers, who probably didn\\u2019t even realize the skin impressions were far more valuable than the bones and may have destroyed them while removing the skeleton.\\n\\nThe lost Tarbosaurus specimen is called a fossilized mummy since a dead animal\\u2019s skeleton with skin is sort of like a mummy. When the soft tissues of a dead animal or person are preserved in some way that causes them to stop decaying, that\\u2019s considered a mummy, and there are a lot of causes.\\n\\nThe most famous mummies, of course, are from ancient Egypt. It was important in Egyptian culture at the time to preserve a dead person\\u2019s body, and dead animals were also mummified sometimes, especially cats. The body was treated with salt and spices that helped dry the tissues and preserve them from bacteria, and once it was fully dehydrated the body was wrapped in linen bandages, covered with a natural waterproofing material made from plant resins, and placed in a wooden coffin. Sometimes the coffin was then put into a stone sarcophagus to keep it extra safe.\\n\\nOther cultures across the world have practiced mummification too,'