Distinctive dino bones discovered

From ABC27 (Pennsylvania): Distinctive dino bones discovered
Dr. Robert Sullivan, the curator paleontologist at the state museum, has parts of a huge dinosaur - the alamasorous.

He discovered them with his then -research assistant Denver Fowler (now a doctorial student at Montana State University) while on an expedition on some federal wilderness lands in New Mexico from 2003-2006.

"You walk these badlands and you look for these tell-tale signs of bones emerging from the rock... and then when you see some of the bone coming through [you] start digging around it," Sullivan said.

The bones discussed in Dr. Sullivan's latest research published earlier this month were parts of two vertebrae and a femur. They belong to an alamosaurus about 69 million years old.

But it wasn't easy finding them. One bone was still encased in rock, and no cars are allowed on the federal wilderness land.

"It took a while to clean it up because we were trying to make sure that we didn't destroy the external service...but because it is so weathered and poorish it's very difficult to deal with," Sullivan said.

Its size was the major breakthrough - larger than some of the largest sauropod bones found in South America.

The findings will help researchers better understand dinosaurs.