MiniMeanderings

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geologise:

No bones about it, new dinosaur identified on Prairies.
Above: Composite drawing of new species of dinosaur that has been named Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis. Research confirms that a partial skeleton discovered in Saskatchewan is a new species of plant-eating dinosaur.

REGINA — A 66-million-year-old partial skeleton discovered in Saskatchewan has been confirmed as a new species of plant-eating dinosaur.

The new species has been named Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis after Saskatchewan’s Assiniboia district where it was found.

“It is small, but there are features in the cranium, the back end of the skull, and a few features in the pelvis that are quite distinct among all other known species of Thescelosaurus,” said Tim Tokaryk of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. “So based on those central features, that’s what made it a new species.”

Tokaryk said the new dinosaur is similar in size to a white-tailed deer.

“That’s pretty small for a dinosaur in general. I mean T. Rex, which this thing would have had to avoid, was quite large,” he said. “We know there were small dinosaurs around at that time because we found fragments, we find teeth and such like that. But to find a partial skeleton of one individual, that makes it interesting…”

The specimen was collected from the Frenchman River Valley near Eastend in 1968, but was only identified when Caleb Brown, a master’s student from the University of Calgary, studied the bones for his thesis. Tokaryk said it takes time for the palaeontology community to vet the work and for the findings to be put into scientific print.