时间:2025-04-26 13:19:58 来源:网络整理编辑:綜合
In the rocky hills of what is now Montana, a Tyrannosaurus rex once lumbered across the land, standi
In the rocky hills of what is now Montana, a Tyrannosaurus rex once lumbered across the land, standing as high as 20-feet tall and stretching up to 40-feet long.
Some 66 million years later, a team of U.S. paleontologists have unearthed its skull, making an extremely rare find for the realm of dinosaur fossils. The 2,500-pound boulder of a bone traveled west this week to Seattle, where it arrived at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
SEE ALSO:Because regular lightning is not scary enough, here's T-Rex lightning“The combination of the skull features, the size of the bones, and the honeycomb-like appearance of the bones tell us this is a T. rex,” Greg Wilson, the museum’s adjunct curator of vertebrate paleontology, said in a media release on Wednesday.
“This was a very exciting moment for us,” he said.
Wilson led a team of more than 45 people who helped excavate the dinosaur fossils over the course of a month this summer.
Luke Tufts and Jason Love, two paleontology volunteers with Burke Museum, were searching for signs of fossils in the Hell Creek Formation when they encountered a large scattering of bone fragments at the surface of the sandstone. The 4-foot-long skull featured a keyhole-shaped opening that paleontologists said was unmistakably the squamosal bone of the enormous carnivorous vertebrate, according to Burke Museum.
“When we started to see those teeth with the skull, we knew we had a fantastic specimen,” Wilson recalled in the media release.
The T. rexis now nicknamed the “Tufts-Love Rex” in honor of the two enterprising volunteers.
Despite the T. rex’s prominent role in our dinosaur dreamscapes, this finding is incredibly rare: Only about 15 “reasonably complete” T. rex skulls are known to exist in the world, the Burke Museum noted.
Paleontologists have so far excavated just 20 percent of the Tufts-Love Rex’s full skeleton, including the skull, teeth, ribs, vertebrae, hips and lower jaw bones.
The Burke Museum team said it successfully shipped the skull, wrapped in a plaster field jacket, to its Seattle location on Thursday.
The public can view the T. rex skull, along with other dinosaur fossils and paleontology field tools, at the museum from Aug. 20 through Oct. 2. The University of Washington plans to permanently display the skull at the New Burke Museumwhen it opens in 2019.
Carlos Beltran made a very interesting hair choice2025-04-26 13:17
越南女足又一人中招 或被取消亞洲杯參賽資格2025-04-26 12:54
越南隊長談大年初一戰國足:盼為所有越南人帶來特別的春節2025-04-26 12:46
19日賠率:曼聯熱刺客場需防平 國米輕鬆取勝晉級2025-04-26 12:42
Darth Vader is back. Why do we still care?2025-04-26 12:14
十佳球:丁丁世界波力斬藍軍 日本天才絕妙任意球2025-04-26 11:58
FIFA年度最佳各獎項一覽 !萊萬蟬聯最佳 C羅獲特別獎2025-04-26 11:41
日本隊首訓殘陣不誤上強度 森保一篤定433戰國足2025-04-26 11:30
What brands need to know about virtual reality2025-04-26 11:09
米蘭前瞻 :取勝即超越國米登頂 伊布力爭破C羅紀錄2025-04-26 10:43
How Hyperloop One went off the rails2025-04-26 12:37
哀悼!皇馬官方 :俱樂部傳奇亨托逝世 享年88歲2025-04-26 12:15
濟南警方正式通報案情 成某毆打他人被行政拘留十日罰款500元2025-04-26 12:10
吳曦FIFA年度最佳投票順序 :球員先選若鳥 主帥曼奇尼第一2025-04-26 11:59
Two states took big steps this week to get rid of the tampon tax2025-04-26 11:12
巴黎聯係齊達內+談判兩大中場 姆巴佩或因此續短約2025-04-26 11:05
被成源毆打當事女生發聲:不會刪微博 走法律程序2025-04-26 10:57
前國安外援費爾南多加盟土超安塔利亞 簽約1年半2025-04-26 10:46
Plane makes emergency landing after engine rips apart during flight2025-04-26 10:41
尤文步米蘭後塵 ?迪巴拉或免簽國米 藍黑開5年肥約2025-04-26 10:41