Newly Discovered Dinosaur Fossil Had Sat In Museum For 75 Years

Museum Had Been Sitting On New Dinosaur For 75 Years

An entirely new species of dinosaur has been discovered from fossils that had been sat in a Canadian museum for 75 years.

The fossils had been incorrectly labelled as another species for 75 years but then the University of Bath's Nick Longrich discovered that they were actually from a new animal entirely.

What he found was a new species of the dinosaur Pentaceratops, a smaller relative of the well-known Triceratops.

At over 75 million years old, this particular species of Pentaceratops was a vegetarian, around the same size as a large cow and could be found in the US south-west.

Dr Longrich believes that this is just one of an untold number of new discoveries waiting to be found due to a better understanding of the sheer diversity of animals that were around at the time.

"We thought we had discovered most of the species, but it seems there are many undiscovered dinosaurs left, the total dinosaur diversity must have been extraordinarily high. We've really only just scratched the surface."

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