It ’s not often you get to a see a dinosaur catch a ride with a chopper . The full skeletal cadaver of a youngPentaceratopshave been airlifted by the New Mexico National Guard in New Mexico .
paleontologist from theNew Mexico Museum of National History and Sciencefound the fossil in the badlands ofBisti Wildernessin northwesterly New Mexico in 2011 . attach by bureaucracy and unforgiving terrain , it has taken four years to be after the skeleton ’s safety valve . Last Thursday , a Blackhawk helicopter from the U.S. National Guard lift the fossil off the New Mexico dust and onto a freight truck where it will be delivered to the museum in Albuquerque .
The exposition also airlift the skull of an grownup Pentaceratops that was find approximately 16 kilometre ( 10 statute mile ) forth . They encased the fossils in hundred of pounds of plaster for aegis before they were lifted .
Pentaceratops lived in North America around 70 million years ago and was about six metre ( twenty foot ) long . Fewer than 10 grownup Pentaceratops skulls have been found so far , however this is the first baby skeletal system arrant with its skull ever to be found .
Artist ’s mental picture of an adult Pentaceratops . Image Credit : Nobu Tamura / Wikimedia Commons
“ There ’s a tidy sum of interesting questions , ” museum conservator Spencer Lucas said to theAssociated Press . “We bed what the grownup skull of a Pentaceratops look like , but we ’ve never seen a juvenile skull . So it will be interesting to see what the differences are in shape , the sizing of the horns and other kind of features . ”
It is hoped that the fossils can go on display at some point in the futurity . However , before that , there will be months of employment at the museum to take away the plaster from the fossils and inquire them further .
paleontologist conceive the stiff of the sister Pentaceratops were swept downstream by a river as some of the skeleton has fallen apart . However , they will carry on their probe into the last 24-hour interval of this dinosaur back at the museum .
Lucas lend , “ Until we clean house it up and really see how the off-white are set and we look for thing like tooth marks on the off-white or something like that , we wo n’t answer those questions . But these are things we ’re interested in . ”
