The only green-boned dinosaur discovered is on display in L.A.
The latest dinosaur mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species – it is also the only found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.
Named “Gnatalia” (pronounced natalie) for the flies that have invaded during excavation, the long -tail herbivorous dinosaur fossils, obtained their unique coloring, a dark marble olive green, mineral celadonitis during the fossilization process.
Although fossils are generally brown from silica or black iron minerals, green is rare because celadonite is formed in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions which generally destroy buried bones. Celadonitis entered the fossils when volcanic activity about 50 to 80 million years ago made it warm enough to replace a previous mineral.
The dinosaur lived 150 million years ago at the end of the Jurassic era, which makes it older than the tyrannosaurus rex – which lived 66 million at 68 million years.
Researchers discovered bones in 2007 in Utah badlands.
“Dinosaurs are an excellent vehicle to teach our visitors the nature of science, and what better than a green dinosaur almost 80 feet long to engage them in the scientific discovery process and make them think about the wonders of the world in which we live!” Luis M. Chiappe of the Museum Dinosaur Institute said in a statement on the discovery of his team.
Matt Wedel, anatomist and paleontologist at Western of Health Sciences University in Pomona near Los Angeles, said he heard “rumors of a well -turned green dinosaur when I was in higher education”.
When he maintained the bones while they were still cleaned, he said that they “were not like nothing else I ever saw”.
The dinosaur is similar to a kind of sauropod called diplodocus, and the discovery will be published in a scientific article next year. The Sauropod, referring to a family of massive herbivores which includes the Brontosaurus and the Brachiosaur, will be the largest dinosaur of the museum and can be seen this fall in its new reception center.
John Whitlock, who teaches Mount Aloysius College, a private Catholic college in Cresson, Pennsylvania, and is looking for sauropods, said it was exciting to have such a complete skeleton to help fill the whites for less complete specimens.
“It’s extremely huge, it really adds to our ability to understand both taxonomic diversity … but also anatomical diversity,” said Mr. Whitlock.
The dinosaur was named “Gnatalia” last month after the museum asked for a public vote on five choices which included Verdi, a derivative of the Latin word for green; Olive, after the little green fruit symbolizing peace, joy and strength in many cultures; Esme, abbreviation of Esmeralda, who is Spanish for emerald; And sage, a green and emblematic plant also cultivated in the natural gardens of the Museum of Natural History.
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
