Thursday, December 1, 2011

Juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex Jaw






This is a cast of juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex jaws/teeth found in Montana in 1966. Studies have shown that it was less than 3 years old when it died.  The skull shape differs from a mature animal and was once thought to be a different species. These fossils were on display at the Carnegie Museum for Natural History in 2011.

Here is the mature skull shown in an exhibit at the museum.  Discovered at Hell Creek, Montana and given the accession number CM 9380. This carnivore prowled the plains of the western United States and southwestern Canada in the Late Cretaceous Period (68-66 million years ago), Mesozoic Era.

This skull contains the actual fossils that are part of the holotype for the T. rex. The holotype was discovered by Barnum Brown in 1902.  Those remains were used to create a intact skeleton for the American Museum of Natural History in New York city.  The Carnegie Museum acquired this skeleton in 1941. In 2003, the museum dismantled the skeleton for analysis and cleaning.  The work was finished in 2008 and the dinosaur was presented in its new pose. Read about the process at the PaleoLab section of their web site: http://www.carnegiemnh.org/exhibitions/paleolab/rex.html


See this site at the museum web site for media images of the skull including shots from inside the skull: http://www.carnegiemnh.org/press/08-apr-jun/051208rex-images.htm

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Protoceratops andrewsi


The horned dinosaur (ceratopsian) Protoceratops andrewsi displayed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This small herbivore grazed in what is now Mongolia, China in the Cretaceous Period (Mesozoic Era). This fossil was found in 1925 at the Djadokhta Formation in Bayn Dzak, Mongolia.  Dinosaur remains are accession number CM 9185.


Learn more at the museum web site: http://www.carnegiemnh.org/

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sphenodiscus lenticularis Ammonite


The Sphenodiscus lenticularis ammonite found in the Fox Hills Formation of South Dakota, U.S.A. Originally named by Owen in 1852 the genus Ammonites. This creature swam the seas of the Upper Cretaceous. The suture pattern shown in the images was once covered by an iridescent shell.  See this link the University of Wisconsin for an example: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ifischer/Collections/Fossils/Images/sphenodiscus2.jpg

Thanks to Mark Palatas for letting me photograph this specimen in his collection.


Learn more at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphenodiscus