Monthly Archives: June 2017

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June 2017 Hands-On Microfossil Event

With instruction from Brody Hovatter, NPA members sorted microfossils under microscopes for storage in the Burke collection.

Major New Dinosaur Finds from Montana and Alberta  

Daspletosaurus horneri, New Tyrannosaurus Relative from Montana

Tyrannosaurus rex remains the best known (and maybe the most popular) dinosaur, but the huge meat-eater had relatives that paleontologist are still discovering. The latest new member of the tyrannosaurid family was found in Montana and lived about 75 million years ago, about 10 million years before Tyrannosaurus. Paleontologist have named it Daspletosaurus horneri (in honor of Montana paleontologist Jack Horner!) and published a short description in a new scientific paper (available for free). The genus Daspletosaurus “frightful lizard” was first described from another species (Daspletosaurus torosus) that lived earlier and was found in Alberta in Canada. The new species D. horneri differs in a number of small ways from D. torosus, but may, in fact, be a direct evolutionary descendent of the earlier Alberta species, a process called anagenesis. Read More →