First bone

I would like to present to you the first intact dinosaur bone collected from the Almond formation in 74 years! This femur (thighbone) was discovered by field paleontologist Luke Kosowatz on the second day of our trip. After Luke found some large white bone fragments on the surface we followed them up to a layer and dug in. When we realized that we had a bone buried in the ground we jumped up and down with excitement. The specimen was riddled with cracks and is very fragile. We took great pains to remove it without damaging it. Our tentative field identification is that this animal is either a member of the tyrannosaurid family or the hadrosaurid family (duckbilled herbivores). I have yet to open the field jacket that contains the specimen, but we should know within a few months once we finish cleaning it in the laboratory. If it is a tyrannosaurid then it is the first one ever collected from the Alm ond Formation. We will learn soon enough!

 

Dinosaur femur. This belongs to either a hadrosaurid or a tyrannosaurid.