Tenontosaurus with Head

[M Murphy <4mjmu@home.com>]

This from NY Times.

Cheers,

M.J. Murphy

`The shapes of things are dumb.'
-L. Wittgenstein
---------------

          February 27, 2001

          At Last, Scientists Find Bones From a
          Tenontosaurus That Didn't Lose Its Head

          By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

               he Tenontosaurus, a large plant-eating
               dinosaur, was to the predatory
          Deinonychus 110 million years ago what the
          wildebeest is to the lion: lunch.

          Paleontologists have been turning up bones of
          tenontosaurs for years in Montana and Oklahoma. But until now
they had
          failed to find an intact skeleton with a well-preserved skull.

          Scientists at the University of Oklahoma reported yesterday
that they had
          just excavated a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a
tenontosaur
          almost 25 feet long.

          The specimen was found in rural Atoka County, in Oklahoma,
about 150
          miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

          Dr. Richard L. Cifelli, a paleontologist and zoology professor
at the
          university, said this was "probably the largest and certainly
the most
          perfectly preserved Tenontosaurus ever found."

          Dr. Cifelli and Dr. Nicholas J. Czaplewski, another university

          paleontologist, were especially elated when researchers and
volunteers,
          working at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in

          Norman, finally chipped away enough of the dinosaur's rocky
tomb to
          reveal a complete skull.

          The heads on all previous tenontosaur specimens were either
missing or
          crushed and fragmented.



          "I've never seen anything like it," Dr. Cifelli said in a
telephone interview.
          "The head is so perfect that even the hyoid bones, which
support the
          tongue, are preserved, and you hardly ever find fragile bones
like that."

          Although the skeleton may not be ready for display for two
years, the
          public may view the preparations on the museum's Web site:
          www.snomnh.ou.edu/tenontocam.