Evolution Research - General Evolution News

A 'spectacular beast' is coming back to its original stomping grounds and making a new home at the University of Alberta - a coup that will allow its researchers to study the rare dinosaur skull up close.

'This is a very dramatic beast,' said Dr. Michael Caldwell (homepage), a palaeontolgist who was instrumental in getting the skull to the U of A. 'What we will have is a cast, but the specimen is one of a kind in the world. This is the last cast from the original mould and when you have a research quality cast where it is duplicated right down to a freckle, it doesn't get any better than that.'

The fossils from this large herbivorous dinosaur were first found by the Sternberg family, who were hired by the Geological Survey of Canada to compete with Americans coming to Alberta to collect fossils. The Sternbergs gathered all kinds of bones, including the skull of Styracosaurus albertensis (info). 'The specimen was perfect,' says Caldwell. 'And it's a big one - the skull is two metres long.'

Continued at "Styracosaurus: Spectacular dinosaur skull comes back to Alberta"
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Image Credit: Research Casting International

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