NC State professor Lindsay Zanno has been working on a study with an international team of researchers to restore one of the rarest fossils in the world employing high-resolution computed tomography (CT scanning) and 3D modeling software.

Zanno is an assistant research professor in the department of biology at NC State and also the director of the Paleontology & Geology Research Laboratory at the NC Museum of Natural Science. The fossil is the skull bone of a therizinosaur (Erlikosaurus andrewsi), a type of theropod dinosaur Zanno studies.

Ninety million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, the 10-13 ft. tall therizinosaurs roamed Mongolia, and the only skull that has been found of this species has been kept in Mongolia. The political situation in Mongolia is the reason that it has not been studied before, according to Zanno. This is the first time that the western world has been able to dissect this fossil and learn about the life of the therizinosaur.

“This work is on the leading edge of digital innovation for the study of fossil specimens,” Zanno said. “This is the first time we’ve been able to digitally dissect a therizinosaur skull to view its interior anatomy.”

The therapods are considered distant cousins of modern birds.

According to Zanno, the therizinosaur has very distinctive traits such as its pot belly, beak, claws that are over a meter long and wide, and flat feet. These are all characteristics that Zanno and her colleagues in paleontology have been able to determine through traditional fossil analysis methods.

The use of the CT scanner allows researchers to get a better idea of the internal structures of the fossils by measuring density differentials in the bones. By using a digital visualization program called Maya, they are then able to create a life-like model of the dinosaur. Design and art students are also brought in to help finalize the model, according to Zanno. This data can give researchers insights into how these dinosaurs lived on a daily basis.

In one of Zanno’s summer courses, she takes grad and undergrad students to an active dig site in Utah where they gain experience using various paleontological field and lab methods.

“We are hoping that [CT scanning] will become a standard method for NC State grad students to use,” Zanno said.