Meninges - the tough tissues surrounding the actual brain - as well as tiny capillaries and portions of adjacent cortical tissues have been preserved as mineralised 'ghosts'. The results are reported in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London, published in tribute to Professor Martin Brasier of the University of Oxford, who died in 2014. The fossilised brain, found by fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks near Bexhill in Sussex in 2004, is most likely from a species similar to Iguanodon: a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 133 million years ago. What's different about this particular example, Liu says, is that the outer millimeter or so of this fossil "is actually mineralization of some of the soft tissue structures that were preserved before they decayed away within the original dinosaur brain case." Working with colleagues from the University of Western Australia, the researchers used scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques in order to identify the tough membranes, or meninges, that surrounded the brain itself, as well as strands of collagen and blood vessels.
– Are we one step closer to Jurassic Park? Probably not, but researchers do believe they've found the first ever example of fossilized brain tissue from a dinosaur, National Geographic reports. The fossil was found on an English beach in 2004, but its unique trait—mineralized pieces of brain tissue—was announced in a study Thursday. "The chances of preserving brain tissue are incredibly small, so the discovery of this specimen is astonishing," Phys.org quotes study coauthor Alex Liu as saying. Researchers believe the dinosaur, a relative of the Iguanodon, sank upside down into a pond after it died. The pond water "essentially pickled" the dinosaur's brain, and the pickled tissue was eventually replaced by minerals. The outer millimeter of the fossil seems to include mineralized blood vessels and bits of the membrane that covered the brain, NPR reports. Researchers believe it may also contain mineralized pieces of the brain itself. “That is the nearest I suspect we’re ever going to get to the whole [brain],” paleontologist David Norman tells NatGeo. One result of the new discovery: Researchers say it may show dinosaurs were smarter than we've been giving them credit for. In modern reptiles, the brain doesn't take up the entire brain case in the skull. That appears not to have been the case in this dinosaur, meaning it may have had a larger brain than previously believed. Norman says it appears the dino was at least as smart as a modern crocodile. (A bus-sized dinosaur comes with a surprise.)