Normally when fall rolls around, field work at the Royal Tyrrell Museum slows down considerably, but a new find is keeping crews busy even as snow blankets the province.
Palaeontologists from the Tyrrell Museum believe the skeleton is from Hypacrosaurus, a large hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) that lived about 68 million years ago. Hadrosaurs roamed throughout western North America and measured up to twelve metres long.
Dr. Don Brinkman, Becky Sanchez, Jim McCabe, Joe Sanchez, and Darren Tanke of the Royal Tyrrell Museum with a 68 million year old hardosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) skeleton unearthed in Leduc. On October 23, the museum was called by a construction crew who found the beast while digging for a new housing development.
This is the second hadrosaur collected in Alberta in the space of a month. A discovery on October 1 at Spirit River, near Grande Prairie, made international news.
“It’s been an incredible year for dinosaur finds,” said Andrew Neuman, executive director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. “This surge in fossil finds has supplemented our own work this field season due in part to increased awareness and diligence among industry and keen-eyed amateurs.”
Museum staff received a call from the Degner Construction Group on October 23 to investigate a fossil find. While digging a trench for a new housing development by Qualico Communities, Degner employees found a series of fossils about six metres below the surface.
Together with Museum staff, the Degner crew used its large excavator to remove the soil, rock and other material above the fossil, allowing it to be secured and safely transported back to the museum on November 5. So far, a tail and hips are visible in the exposed portion of the fossil, and some skull elements have been identified.
The Leduc fossil will be stored in the museum’s collections until it is prepared for further study.
