There is an amazing incredible new historical piece added to the Royal Ontario Museum and we went to check it out. We are here to talk to you about the first-hand look at the new species of Ankylosaurus. This is the first to ever be found in North America and has been named Zuul crurivastator. Keep reading to learn more about this specific dinosaur as well as our time at the museum.
This newfound specifies is a cousin to the Tyrannosaurus rex. It may have used to live around the Alberta, Canada and Montana area. The interesting thing about the skeleton is that the shin was broken. We don’t know the entire story as we cannot step back in time. All we can tell is that the shin healed during its life. The most exciting part about this story is that it is the first of its kind to ever be dug up in North America.
The new exhibit is relatively new to the museum. This type of findings does not enter a museum right away. It was found in May 2017 and put into the museum in December 2018. It’s an exciting addition to the second floor. This does not mean the entire fossil is shown in the museum. In fact, some of it is a hundred miles away and is at the research facility called Research Casting International in Trenton, Ontario.
For a museum to unveil a new item in it, let alone an item that has never been found in the area before is a lot of work. With that said, it brings more visitors and anyone that likes learning about history is interested in it.
Since there is so much decay when it is found, it is like putting a huge puzzle together with many parts. You have many trial and errors until you find which piece goes where. That is one of the reasons why it takes so long to unveil. When a dinosaur is first discovered, they need to figure out exactly what it is.
When the Zuul crurivastator was discovered in May 2017, it took researchers a long time to fully discover what it was and that it had never been found in the area before.
This discovery is not just popular in the museum in Canada, but it has been famous around the world. Everyone likes to hear about a new discovery and more about what history was like on planet earth. This shows a little piece of it.
Right after this discover another one was found. This is so uncommon. It was a Borealopelta that was living 35 million years prior to this animal. It did not have a tail. This was also discovered in 2017 and was discovered in Montana in a shallow river floating laying there. Not all the fossil has been discovered, however much of it has which allowed researchers to know exactly what type it was.
This is not the first fossil to be found around there. In 2014, a Gorgosaurus was found. This didn’t know exactly what it was when they found it, but soon put the fossil pieces together and figured it out.
Some fossils are not nearly as exciting as others. The researchers that found Zuul knew that they found something unique that the public would find interesting. After finding it, the Royal Ontario Museum contacted them and said they were interested in having it in their museum. That is how it came to be.
When the museum arrived in Canada, there were two main people that worked on it that new it was going to be something special. The researchers mainly studied the tail and the skull to find out exactly what it was. They soon realized how unique it was to the area.
The researchers named the type of species for the name destroyer of shins. This is a Latin word because of the shin that had problems. The researchers also reached out to Dan Aykroyd, the writer of Ghostbusters to make the name official, since that’s where they got the name from. The writer agreed and so it came to its name.
The weight of the fossil was very heavy. This ended up being a challenge because of its weight. It took a lot of work to get inside. They needed a forklift and it took up the entire parking lot. It took eight months to fully understand how the dinosaur looked and how they put it together. It weighed 17,000 pounds.
The research about the dinosaur is far from over. Since it was discovered so recently, it’s important that they find out as much information about it as they can from the fossils. This will not only let us understand more about the history of the earth but even about the future too.
The features of the Zuul are absolutely amazing and really paint a picture of how it looked 76 million years ago. The jaw was huge, and the eyes were large. It makes you wonder how much they really could see being so tall and having such large eyes. Of course, there is nothing like this today.
Anyone that is entering the museum is in awe of the amazing bones. They really show you exactly what used to be on early millions of years ago. Zuul has become a staple of what history once way and we are so glad the museum sees the importance of not only remembering that but showcasing it as well. You can also see some amazing information about different dinosaur facts right here on Dinosaur.org!
