Rare Baby Dinosaur Fossil Airlifted Out Of New Mexico Wilderness

[Judi Lynn]

Rare Baby Dinosaur Fossil Airlifted Out Of New Mexico Wilderness

The unusual manner of travel capped a years long effort to retrieve the first baby Pentaceratops skeleton ever unearthed.

Jason Wells
posted on Oct. 29, 2015, at 8:14 p.m.

The first-ever discovered skeleton of a baby Pentaceratops — a rhino-like plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the Plains some 70 million years ago — hitched an unusual ride out of the New Mexico wilderness Thursday.

After years of arduous digging and a fair amount of paperwork, the plaster-covered skull and skeleton of the baby Pentaceratops took to the air, carried by a National Guard Blackhawk helicopter to a waiting cargo truck.

Paleontologists with the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which received the fossils Thursday, made the discovery during a trek through the Bisti Wilderness in 2011.

Fewer than 10 adult Pentaceratops skulls have been unearthed in the past century, so the discovery of the nearly intact baby skeleton was greeted with even more excitement.

More:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonwells/blackhawk-helicopter-airlifts-dinosaur-fossil#.pa5Kvbl0j

[gvstn]

1. Fantastic discovery.

I'm so glad that people do the tedious work to excavate these treasures. We really do learn things from this type of work. Congrats to them and to the National Guard for participating.