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April 23, 2009

No Time for Protohadros

A child poses next to the skeleton of a hadrosauroid dinosaur. From Flickr user Clover 1.

A child poses next to the skeleton of a hadrosauroid dinosaur. From Flickr user Clover 1.

Time is running out for paleontologists studying a Cretaceous fossil site in North Arlington, Texas. As reported by CBS 11, paleontologists from the University of Texas only have about five months to finish their work before they will have to make way for a huge development project. This is unfortunate, especially because the site may hold the remains of a mystery dinosaur.

The 1,700-acre site was discovered in 2003 by Art Sahlstein and his daughter Olivia. It seemed like a promising place to dig, conveniently placed for University of Texas students, but it took about four years before paleontologists received permission to excavate. When they were finally able to search the locality, the paleontologists found that most of the bones belonged to a hadrosauroid dinosaur, perhaps Protohadros. They have yet to find a skull, however, and researchers working the site have stated that finding one is essential to knowing whether these dinosaurs were Protohadros or something new. They only have the summer to find out.



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1 Comment »

  1. [...] few months ago I wrote about the rush to study and excavate a Cretaceous fossil site in North Arlington, Texas before developers start [...]

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