Dinosaur Found in Sewer by My House!

Yup, its totally true.

A city worker in Edmonton, Alberta (not far from yours truly) was having a regular, shitty day at work in the sewer. Thats gonna be my only sewer joke, I swear.

So this young man named Aaron Krywiak found what he described as “an interesting shaped rock.” Well that rock turned out to be the tooth of an Edmontosaurus. But thats not all.

Aaron Krywiak

Upon further investigation, Aaron found a “motherlode” of dinosaur bones belonging to Edmontosaurus and Albertosaurus.

Edmontosaurus

Albertosaurus

I love living here. Its pretty cool to be so close to such world class dinosaur research and sites.

I still haven’t made it to the Royal Tyrell Museum though, which is where these fossils are going to be taken. Not to worry, I’ll get there soon and you’ll be sure to hear about it!

Scientists Get Drunk and Name a New Dinosaur

Even dinosaur nerds have a sense of humour. At least, when they are out drinking.

From xkcd

A new dinosaur discovery, published this past week in the Journal of Paleontology, led to the most difficult part of discovering a new dino friend: what to name it.

So, after a few rounds, some Yale grad students thought of a great one. You ready?

Mojoceratops.

Yup, Mojoceratops perifania was first discovered in 2008 when a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University was rummaging through some old fossils at the American Museum of Natural History.

Skull of Mojoceratops

While looking through a pile of bones thought to belong to a dino named Chasmosaurus, he realized that the skulls looked a little weird. Then BAM! it hits him, a brand new dino species.

Mojoceratops used to live up near yours truly in Western Canada. I really need to go check out some of the dinosaur museums around here.

Also kind of makes me want to go rummaging through my old closet and see what cool stuff I can find there…

Dinosaur Graveyard Found Near My House!

What did people find near YOUR house today?

Ok, so maybe its a couple hundred kilometers away from me, but the same province still counts as nearby…right?

Anyway, researchers have found the world’s largest ‘Dinosaur Graveyard’ in Alberta, Canada. The site is roughly 2.3 square kilometers in size and contains thousands of bones from the herbivore Centrosaurus.

Centrosaurus

Centrosaurus lived roughly 76 million years ago in the Alberta area, which at that time was a lovely, warm, tropical area. Too bad its not like that now…

Alberta Weather, Present Day

The huge number of bones in the site suggest that Centrosaurus traveled in herds much larger than we originally thought.

It’s hypothesized that large collections of skeletons like this occur because of a rapid onset of a tropical storm. With the lack of high ground nearby, the dinosaurs pretty much drowned and were buried along with the whole herd.

What I love about dinosaurs (besides the fact that they are awesome) is that we are constantly learning more about them. I was really into dinosaurs when I was a kid, and even though I’m in my mid-20s now, I still find them interesting.

Think I’ll go watch Jurassic Park for the 1000th time.