UW-Madison paleontologists discover oldest dinosaur in North America
A new discovery was made in Madison that dates back to more than 200 million years ago.
Dave Lovelace, the research scientist at UW-Madison's Geology Museum, and his team of paleontologists discovered North America's oldest-known fossil that is 230 million years old.
"It took about 10 years for us to build that story," Lovelace said. "So we had to do the geology, measure the rocks and look for other animals to kind of build the ecosystem. And by the time all was said and done, we were able to refine this and have a really good, strong date of about 230 million years for this."
Lovelace led his team of undergraduates to a dig site in Wyoming in 2013 and while digging for fossils, one of his students discovered two small bones of the 230 million-year-old dinosaur.
The creature, Ahvaytum bahndooiveche, is named in partnership with the Eastern Shashone Tribe in Wyoming where they dug up the bones. It translates to "long ago dinosaur."
"The animal would have stood maybe a foot high and at most three feet long," Lovelace said. "So it's a pretty small animal. It had a long tail and a relatively long neck, but it would have been about the body size of a chicken."
https://www.wkow.com/news/top-stories/uw-madison-paleontologists-discover-oldest-dinosaur-in-north-america/article_3f5d4b70-d53b-11ef-8ae5-f712c2690bac.html
Yhey had to do all the geological work to establish its age. Go Badgers!