Recently, BYU(Brigham Young University) professors have unveiled a new species of dinosaur. This newly discovered dinosaur is called Moabosaurus Utahensis.
The Moabosaurus discovery paper was first published by the University of Michigan. This paper authored by three BYU researchers and a BYU graduate from the Auburn University.
The skeleton of Moabosaurus was excavated from the Dalton Wells Quarry, which is 20 kilometer northwest of Moab. This skeleton was about 125 million-years-old and assembled using bones extracted near Arches National Park, Science Daily reported.
BYU professor, Brook Britt explained that in analyzing dinosaur bones, he and his colleagues rely on constant comparison with other related specimens. They found enough different features to make it unique. Moabosaurus is a genus of herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods.
Moabosaurus had a long neck, pillar size legs and huge elephant-like body which was 10 meter long reported by Phys.Org. Now the researchers pulled over 5000 bones from this one site, most of them belong to this animal.
Moabosaurus lived in Utah when it was filled with large trees, innumerable streams, rivers. But now it opposed to the desert climate. Researchers always thought that Moab is a place of tourism and outdoor activities. But the place has become so popular as a gold mine for dinosaur bones.
Archaeologists said they were honoring to the city Moab and the state of Utah. Those places were so supportive of their excavation efforts. Author, Brook Britt again said the digging process began, when he was a student of BYU geology in 70's.
A previous study suggested that Moabosaurus and other dinosaurs died in a serve drought and the bones were trampled. Most of the bones are fragmentary and only a small percent of them usable. That is why it took so long time to get this animal put together.
This is not the first time, BYU has a legacy of collection dinosaur' bones that started in the early 1960s. Autor Brook Britt said that they could find bones at the other places of the world but they find penalty of bones here on the Utah. Researchers described the discovery of Moabosaurus Utahensis at BYU's Museum of Paleontology.
