Do scientists find any fossilized dinosaur skin?

Answer 1

Yes, fossilized dinosaur skin has been found. In fact it can be seen in the Museum of Science in Boston, or at least could be when I was last there about twenty years ago (I moved out of the area). My recollection of what I saw was a large ossified part, perhaps over half, of a small dinosaur about twice the size of a cow. It looked like it might have frozen, been half thawed out, with the thawed half rotting away, and then been covered and turned to stone. At any rate about half of it was sort of intact, and the fossilized skin on it could clearly be seen.

Of course, whether anything at all, but a few stray atoms, of the original skin was still there is another question. In a case like this, my expectation is that whatever covered it probably became a matrix for its form, which remained as the original organic matter decomposed completely, leaving nothing but the solid parts like bones. Then, the ossification took place, filling the void with minerals. I don't know this happened, but it would be my expectation.

Most fossils of animal parts are bones or shells. There are a few fossils of soft tissue. It is common to find fossils of clam shells, but rare to find the clams. Clearly this is because the clams decomposed and the shells did not.

But a fossil is not even necessarily the remains of an animal or plant. It can be a dinosaur footprint, the track left by a snake, or a filled in hole dug by an insect. These kinds of fossils exist for dinosaur skin also - impressions left by the skin on mud or clay that was covered and ossified, retaining the shape of the skin.

Fossils are most often mineralized, but sometimes they are not. Amber is an example of a common fossil that is not mineralized, and it often contains insects or pollen that are pretty much made up of the original organic matter. And, even when mineralized, sometimes sufficient traces of original material remain to be instructive. I have seen fossilized feathers that were completely mineralized, but retained some of the feather's original pigmentation, so it was possible to see where stripes were on the feather. I have no idea that the dinosaur skin I saw had a color anything like what the original color was. Even if pigment remained, certainly some pigment would have disappeared, leaving an impression of color that might be about as accurate as the idea of the color of a maple leaf in summer derived from fall colors.