T. Rex Marks The Spot

[Garrison Hilliard <garrison@efn.org>]

T.REX MARKS THE SPOT
from The Washington Post

A partial Tyrannosaurus rex discovered in the badlands of Montana will be
airlifted out of the backcountry this weekend on the first leg of a
journey
to the Natural History Museum on the Mall, Smithsonian scientists
announced
yesterday.

Workers from the National Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the
Rockies in Bozeman unearthed the remains of two tyrannosaurs along with a
triceratops at a dig on remote Hell Creek this summer.

In recent years, the site has emerged as a rich trove of all sorts of
dinosaur bones. T. rex -- a seven-ton carnivore with six-inch teeth --
prowled the area more than 65 million years ago. The finds should help
unravel mysteries about how the creature evolved and behaved.

Last month the team finished the work of identifying the specimens and
encasing them in plaster jackets so they could be flown out. The
Smithsonian's share of the fossils should arrive in Washington this fall.
The more complete tyrannosaur will go to the Museum of the Rockies at
Montana State University, where Jack Horner, the leader of the expedition,
is curator of paleontology. Horner was recently named a senior scholar in
paleobiology at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42070-2002Aug20.html