Pictures: This Dinosaur Is the 'Most Impressive Fossil' We've Ever Seen

Right side of the Nodosaur head. Taken at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. The specimen was found at a Suncor oil mining site near Drumheller, Alberta.

Armoured dinosaurs’ trademark plates usually fell off early in decay, a fate that didn’t befall this nodosaur. The remarkably preserved armour will deepen scientists’ understanding of what nodosaurs looked like and how they moved.

Some 110 million years ago, this armoured plant-eater lumbered through what is now western Canada, until a flooded river swept it into open sea. The dinosaur’s undersea burial preserved its armour in exquisite detail.

The nodosaur neck was covered with thorny armour plates more pronounced than the armour on the rest of its body.

On the nodosaur’s torso, chocolate-brown ribs lie next to tan osteoderms against a backdrop of gunmetal grey stone.

During its burial at sea, the nodosaur settled onto its back, pressing the dinosaur’s skeleton into the armour and embossing it with the outlines of some bones. One ripple in the armour traces the animal’s right shoulder blade.

Unlike its more famous relatives in the dinosaur group Ankylosauridae, this nodosaur didn't have a shin-splitting tail club. However, it had two 50-centimetre (20-inch)-long spikes jutting out of its shoulders like a pair of bull’s horns.

On the nodosaur’s torso, chocolate-brown ribs lie next to tan osteoderms and dark gray scales. Tendons that once held up the dinosaur’s tail (top) run alongside its spine, preserved as dark brown bands resembling jerky.

The nodosaur's extraordinary preservation captured its armour plating in 3-D, only slightly squished in comparison to its shape in life.

The nodosaur's head and neck gracefully curve to the left, as if the animal were reaching its mouth toward a tasty fern or cycad. The nodosaur's mouth and teeth suggest that it had a weak bite and didn't chew its food much.

Many of the nodosaur's terracotta-hued armour plates have retained sheaths that were once made of keratin, the same material that's in human fingernails.

A cluster of pebble-like masses may be remnants of the nodosaur's last meal.

A lucky break in the nodosaur’s left shoulder spike reveals a cross section of its bony core. The spike’s tip was sheathed in keratin, the same material that’s in human fingernails.

The nodosaur seems to flash a glare—an effect produced by the fossil's exquisitely preserved eye socket.