Eight New Dinosaur Species Have Been Discovered In Utah During 2010

Scientists announced the discovery of two new dinosaur species last month. In all, fossils from eight new species have been found in Utah this year. The latest find comes from a dinosaur that had a huge brain, according to this new article. Below we give excerpts from the article.

Our website has detailed information about places to view dinosaur fossils and learn about the fascinating creatures.

Latest Utah dinosaur is record-breaking eighth new species of 2010

“Its skull is six times larger than other dinosaurs’,” said Scott Foss, regional paleontologist with the Bureau of Land Management.

But Geminiraptor suarezarum’s large brain case is not its only unique feature. It had an inflatable upper jaw bone and feathers on its arms and legs, and, as Utah’s eighth new dinosaur species of the year, it’s a record breaker, too, for the number of Utah-native species named in one year.

“One [find] is unusual, eight is outstanding,” said Scott Foss, regional paleontologist with the Bureau of Land Management, of the newest creature featured in a paper published Wednesday in the online journal PLoS ONE.

“This string of dinosaur descriptions means that a full 1 percent of all known dinosaur species were described from lands in Utah during 2010,” said Foss. “That’s what’s interesting and fun about this.”

Seven of the new species were found on BLM land and one in Dinosaur National Monument.

The unique fossil was discovered by Celina and Marina Suarez, twin sisters from Temple University who were investigating the site with Kirkland and the Utah Geological Survey while working on their master’s degrees in geology.