New
Dinosaur Rears Its Head
in Dinosaur National
Monument
A team of
paleontologists from
Dinosaur National
Monument, Brigham Young
University, and the
University of Michigan
has announced the
discovery of a new,
large, plant-eating
dinosaur, Abydosaurus
mcintoshi,
(pronounced
Ab-id-o-saurus
mak-in-toshi). The
discovery is described
this week in the on-line
first section of the
science journal
Naturwissenschaften.
The fossil remains were
excavated from the
105-million-year-old
Cedar Mountain Formation
in Dinosaur National
Monument. The new find
contains rare and
spectacular fossils,
including the only
complete sauropod skull
in the entire Western
Hemisphere from the last
80 million years of the
Age of Dinosaurs.
“Because
skulls are made up of
many thin and fragile
bones they are easily
destroyed and rarely
preserved. So although
more than 120 species of
sauropods have been
discovered across the
globe, complete skulls
are extremely rare.”
said Dr. Dan Chure,
paleontologist at
Dinosaur. “However,
skulls are complex
structures that provide
a great deal of
information about the
dinosaur’s biology and
evolution, so they are
extremely important. You
can hardly overstate the
significance of these
fossils.”
“Discovering a complete
sauropod skull is
remarkable. I've been
collecting dinosaurs
since the age of 14, and
these complete skulls
are the most spectacular
fossils I've had the
opportunity to work on”
said BYU researcher
Brooks Britt. “All the
Abydosaurus
fossils we have
collected to date are
juveniles, only a mere
25 feet or so in length.
How large a fully adult
individual was is
unknown but it was
certainly much larger.
Although we haven’t
found a complete
skeleton yet, hope
springs eternal in
paleontology and we will
continue excavations
this summer.”
University
of Michigan researcher
Jeff Wilson and his
graduate student John
Whitlock studied the
feeding adaptations of
Abydosaurus.
Wilson noted that
“Sauropods, one of the
most diverse and long
lived lineages of
dinosaurs, are
surprising in that they
show none of the
adaptations seen in
other plant-eating
dinosaurs, such as beaks
for slicing or cheeks to
hold in food while
chewing. Yet in spite of
the lack of any
specializations, they
were around for 150
million years and are
the largest land
dwelling animals in the
history of life.”
Whitlock added, “Abydosaurus
is from a time period
when titanosauriform
sauropods began to
develop a slimmer tooth
shape from the broader
teeth of their
ancestors. This change
in tooth shape is
related to changes in
diet in a way we are
only just beginning to
understand, in part
because we haven't
always had the fossils
to tell the whole story.
Abydosaurus is
the right dinosaur at
the right time to answer
some of these
questions."
This announcement is the
result of a several
years of research,
beginning with
excavations started in
the late 1990s. The site
contains not just one
individual but the
remains of a group of
sauropods, at least four
individuals and likely
more since additional
fossils are still in the
ground. Most parts of
the skeleton are
present: neck and tail
vertebrae, shoulder
blades, pelvis, arms,
legs, hands, feet, and
four skulls - two
complete and two
incomplete.
The excavation and
preparation of this new
dinosaur’s remains has
been a collaborative
effort among the
National Park Service,
volunteers, students,
paleontologists,
academic institutions,
and outside researchers.
The new fossils are
being prepared and
stored at the
Paleontology Museum at
Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah.
What’s in a name?
Scientific names are
often a mouthful, but
each has a meaning. So
what does Abydosaurus
mcintoshi mean? The
generic name
Abydosaurus refers
to Abydos, the
Greek name for the city
along the Nile River
(now El Araba el Madfuna)
that was the burial
place of the head and
neck of Osiris, Egyptian
god of life, death and
fertility—an allusion to
the skull and neck of
the new dinosaur, which
was found in a quarry
overlooking the Green
River in Dinosaur
National Monument;
sauros is the Greek word
for lizard. The specific
name mcintoshi honors
the paleontologist Dr.
Jack McIntosh, for his
many contributions to
the study of sauropod
dinosaurs and his
decades of assistance to
Dinosaur National
Monument and Brigham
Young University.
Images courtesy of Jeff
Wilson and John
Whitlock, University of
Michigan; and NPS
