A fossil of a never before seen species of dinasaur has been found in South Dakota. Belonging to the pachycephalosaur family, the fossil is flat
headed with protruding horns, and the body would have been the size of a horse. We never suspected such a creature existed," said paleontologist
Robert Bakker.
www.reuters.com
Discovery of the flat-headed member of the pachycephalosaur family changes the view of dinosaur history during the final days of the Cretaceous
Period 66 million years ago, showing that family trees were still evolving even as the entire dinosaur world was about to go extinct, the Children's
Museum of Indianapolis said in announcing the find.
The nearly complete pachycephalosaur skull was donated to the museum by three amateur fossil hunters from Iowa who found it in 2003 while exploring
the Hell Creek Formation in central South Dakota.
The discovery was announced in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.
The museum said the pachycephalosaur family is marked by dragon-like heads covered with horns, knobs and bumps. The most famous family member,
Pachycephalosaurus, had a solid, domed bone helmet up to eight inches (20 cm) thick used to ram other dinosaurs in their sides, it said.
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Paleontologists will need to revamp their pachycephalosaur family tree due to the fact that most have "a solid, domed bone helmet up to eight inches
(20 cm) thick." The only other version that did not have a dome, which was discovered in China and Mongolia, did not have a long flat skull and was
not covered with bumps and horns.
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Related News Links:
www.cbv.ns.ca
www3.sympatico.ca
www.dinoworld.net
[edit on 3-5-2005 by mpeake]
