The fact that borealopelta was countershaded shows how much pressure it was under from predators despite all it's armor.

I saw this dinosaur in person, and it was incredible. It looked like it was a sleeping animal, covered in dust. And the wires that showed the rest of the body was a beautiful addition.

This fossil is breathtaking. A window to a different time of the world.

Please consider continuing this "Most Accurate...Ever Reconstructed" Series!!!

If you'd like suggestions, here are a few:
-Pterosaurs
-Marine Reptiles such as Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs & Mosasaurs
-Small Invertebrates that got trapped/fossilized in Amber
-Feathered Theropods such as Archaeopteryx, Incayaku the Penguin or the ones from the various formations in the Liaoning Province of China (i.e. Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor, Beipiaosaurus, etc.)
-Mammals of the Ice Age that were preserved as frozen carcasses and/or featured in cave art

I have lived most of my life assuming we would never truly know what dinosaurs and ancient creatures looked like. Just artist interpretations. Then we began to calculate muscle and build based on walking patterns. Then we found specimens like this, ridiculously well preserved. And now we are finding out what colors they had. And even the behavior that goes along with it. It's mind boggling how much research gets done to bring us this information. Thank you for sharing it!

Bonus: and may all this information about accurate reconstruction inspire even more artistic expression! Without the paleo artists we wouldn't even know where to begin. <3

That's a great idea for a series! I knew about borealopelta but not about psittacosaurus. My next suggestion would be the foot of that duck-billed dinosaur.

Seeing boreapelta in person at the Royal Terrel is something else. Its an incredible specimin in a truly world class institution. Well worth visiting!

I always think of how many Fossil we have destroyed through mining where we might have over looked something incredible and destroyed it, feels really lucky to see something this incredibly preserved

Any number of the small feathered dinosaurs out of China would be fun to see you cover if you do continue this series.

I remember seeing about this as a kid in some paleo news article and thinking that we were going to finally bring dinosaurs back from the dead

Also worth noting, countershading may have given them better survival odds during youth, before reaching the size needed to defend themselves properly. So it may not actually be something thats important to them as adults, just a holdover from when they were young, and countershading would have greatly aided survival.

I love ankylosaurs so much

Six years (70,000 hours) to prepare one specimen!    Now that's dedication to your job.

The countershading on Borealopelta makes a lot of sense when put into context. Today's large herbivores are mainly fighting groups of smaller predators whereas Mesozoic-era herbivores had to contend with predators that were much much larger and therefore hiding was a smart idea

I dream of a tyrannosaurus being found in this condition. Such a specimen probably doesn't exist, but can you imagine?

Ankylosaur was my absolute favorite as a kid and is still my favorite. This makes both past me and present me very happy :)

i recently got to visit this amazing fossil at the Royal Tyrrell, what an amazing experience. i’m lucky to live in such a fossil rich part of the world. great vid!  :)

The fact that these things were on the same planet as us is wild

My wife and I recently completed a bucket list item (for me!) of driving the Alaska Canada Highway round trip. One of the most important stops for me was the Royal Tyrell Museum. It dud not disappoint! There were two fossils I particularly wanted to see for myself. This one and Tiktaalik, which I had read about in Neil Shubin's excellent book, "Your Inner Fish".  Just amazing to see these examples of fossil preservation and examination!

Its a shame half of it was destroyed