New Dinosaur Discoveries In North America

It's hard to believe that millions of years ago, there were creatures that were taller than the giraffe, heavier than the elephant, and walked on two legs. Yet there were. There were thousands of thousands of dinosaurs that roamed the earth much like we do. They were believed to be related to elephants, or reptiles, or birds, or many of the other creatures here today. Regardless if you believe evolution caused their extinction, a meteor, or just plain time they left their fingerprints, or rather their skeletal remains all over this world for us to find. We have a lot to know about dinosaurs today. In fact, just last week there was a huge discovery where two dinosaurs were uncovered that had never been seen before. The neatest part of all this, is much of this, to us Americans, is right in our backyard. Here is a history and our future of what our discoveries of dinosaurs have found.

On Wednesday September 22, 2010, a new discovery was found in Salt Lake City, Utah! They found two dinosaurs! Both are closely related to the triceratops.They were both uncovered earlier this year at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This has been a hot spot for many new discoveries of dinosaurs in the past decade. Although now it is a very rocky terrain, several million years ago when dinosaurs would have roamed the world, it was very swamp.Like the triceratops they are counted as one of the ceratopsids that are four legged herbivore dinosaurs.

One is called Kosmoceratops richardsoni, and is probably the most ornate dinosaur that has ever been uncovered. It has fifteen horns on it's head. Ten of these horns are on a frill like that on the triceratops. They point downward yet out! It is about 2.5 tons and 15 feet long! The horns on the Kosmoceratops range from six inches to a foot long.

The other one only has five horns on it's head and is known as Utahceratops gettyi. It has one horn that sticks straight up from the nose, and two more near the eyes that stick out like a bison. This one is slightly larger than the Kosmoceratops. It's head is about seven feet long, and stood about six feet tall. So yes, you can imagine it was a pretty scary thing. The body was nearly 18 to 22 feet long, and weighed around 3 to 4 ton. The horns are about the same legnth as that found on the Kosmoceratops.

They believe that the horns on these dinosaurs were similar to the antlers on deer. They were meant to attract sexual mates, and intimidate competitors, this is believed since they would have actually been very poor weapons. In fact paleontologist believe these horns probably did not begin to develop until around puberty, to show that they were mature enough to mate.

Although the term dinosaurs or at least dinosaurios was first coined in 1842, it was not until many years later in the early to mid nineteen hundreds that people began to understand what dinosaurs really looked like. These discoveries were first made in North America. 

This was in part due to the first fully formed dinosaur specimen that was found in Haddonfield, New Jersey found nearly a century before. They named this dinosaur the Hadrosaurus foulkii. It was discovered by William Parker Foulke as he was vacationing in the town. He ended up hiring a crew to dig out this creature that is described as bigger than an elephant with lizard and bird like features.

The most interesting part of this creature was that it stood on two legs and had very short arms. This was a new thought at the time that there were ever any reptiles that were bipedal rather than walking on all fours. This was first put on display in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1868. For many years this was the only dinosaur on display. Casts were made of this dinosaur and spread out to other museums.

Many of these discoveries would not have taken place if it was not for two great dinosaur rushes in America. One began in Colorado and Wyoming in the late 1870's started by two elite paleontologists in Yale University. They were named Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Marsh. They first discovered a great mass of dinosaur bones in the Garden Park area of Colorado and then secondly in Como Bluff, Wyoming. This began a mad search for dinosaur bones specifically in the North American region. Although these men began as friends the rush began feuds between the friends and later became great rivals due to the intense search for dinosaur bones.

A second Dinosaur Rush began in Red Deer River in southern Alberta around the early nineteen hundreds. The first dinosaur in this area was found in 1884, but was not rabidly sought until nearly 30 years later. This also caused a feud, but more of a friendly healthy competition that only served to further the discoveries of dinosaurs. it was between two great paleontologists: Barnum Brown who worked for the American Museum of Natural History in New York and C.H. Sternberg who worked for the Geological Survey of Canada.

• http://www.woodtv.com/dpps/news/strange/2-new-dinosaur-species-discovered-in-southern-utah-ob10-jgr_3588757
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100922-new-species-dinosaurs-horned-utah-fossils-science/
• http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/dinodiscoveriesna.html