Posted on 03/08/2006 11:16:39 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Murphy and his team recovered the complete neck, skull, teeth and other bones from the 20-ton dinosaur believed to have roamed the flood plains of ancient Montana 150 million years ago. The delicate skull was a particularly rare find. Only about two dozen sauropod skulls have ever been found, and Murphy estimates that 90 percent of those were flattened or broken when they were buried. Ralph's skull was mostly intact... The scientists have not yet gone through the formal process of describing the species in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but the skulls and other portions have been shown to several sauropod experts... Soon, they were uncovering a lower leg bone, an 11-foot neck, a 6-foot rib, several peg-shaped teeth, the lower jaw and, most importantly, the upside-down skull... The found bones indicate that the stubby-legged dinosaur stood 18 to 20 feet tall at the head and was 40 to 45 feet long. The huge ribs shielded a gut that sloshed with decaying food and a few rocks rolling around to help digestion... In its day, the dinosaur likely roamed over a rolling, arid flood plain common in the late Jurassic period, which started about 210 million years ago and lasted about 70 million years.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.net ...
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