Museum, NCSU collaboration recovers nearly complete duckbilled dinosaur
For Immediate Release
October 31, 2006
Contact: Jon Pishney, Museum Communications
919-733-7450 ext. 304
RALEIGH – Researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University announced the results of their first paleontology fieldwork collaboration. The find? A remarkably complete skeleton and skin impressions from a 67-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur (Edmontosaurus annectens). The specimen, painstakingly recovered from a Montana hillside this past summer, is the most complete dinosaur ever brought to the state of North Carolina and estimated to be in the top five percent of all dinosaur specimens worldwide, in terms of completeness and preservation.
Since 2004, Clint Boyd, an NC State graduate student studying under Research Curator of Paleontology and NC State assistant professor Julia Clarke, has been in Ekalaka, Montana, working as paleontology camp director for the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum. Boyd arranged for the Museum to take over the UW’s dig permit and in August 2006, Museum staff members — along with two UW students and six additional volunteers — joined him to complete the unearthing of the dinosaur, including its 400-pound skull and approximately 100 vertebrae. While an Edmontosaurus is not all that rare, recovery of more than 80 percent of an individual dinosaur, with more still to be collected, is truly unique. [Typical museum specimens are only about 50 percent real bone, and are often compiled from more than one individual.]
Curator of Paleontology Vince Schneider said the discovery was exhilarating. “It was absolutely beautiful. As we found fossil after fossil and particularly the skull, I couldn’t help but wonder if we could get it from the site to the Museum. Many of the bones were extremely heavy, and at least five people were needed to carry some pieces from the site.”
Ekalaka is located in the Hell Creek Formation, an intensely studied division of Upper Cretaceous rocks in North America. This formation has produced impressive assemblages of invertebrates, plants, mammals and fish, as well as large dinosaurs like the Edmontosaurus and triceratops and the occasional Tyrannosaurus rex.
Collaborating with the NC State paleontology program is a huge plus for the Museum, said Director Betsy M. Bennett. “The folks at NC State have gained access to some remarkable sites in Montana. We are thrilled to be working with them in recovering dinosaurs that will ultimately enhance our collections, our exhibits, and our understanding of dinosaur preservation.”
Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and NC State professor Mary Schweitzer will be attempting to recover soft tissue from the bones of the Edmontosaurus, using a process she helped develop last summer for a Tyrannosaurus rex, a discovery that gained worldwide attention. While her work is just starting, “At this point,” she said, “it looks very promising.”
Schneider said he expects to have the Edmontosaurus skull ready for Museum display in a year. He’s already scheduled a trip to return to Montana in 2007 to recover the remaining Edmontosaurus vertebrae in Ekalaka, as well as other bones from two additional specimens recently discovered at a nearby site in Malta.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, in downtown Raleigh, documents and interprets the natural history of the state of North Carolina through exhibits, research, collections, publications, and educational programming. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 9 am to 5 pm, and Sun., noon to 5 pm. Admission is free. Visit the Museum on the Web at naturalsciences.org. The Museum is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, William G. Ross Jr., Secretary.
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