It's not often, after all, that you can see and touch a skull that's about the size of a Smart Car, about 70 million years old and looks like a mutant blend of a triceratops and giant parrot.
University of Calgary paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky first made the mammoth find in Alberta's Badlands, then revealed it to the world Thursday."It almost looks like some sort of mythical beast," Zelenitsky said. "Because it is so big and (mature), it makes for a very strange-looking individual."
This isn't the first Pachyrhinosaurus discovery -- that came in the mid-20th century -- and there have been other notable such finds since then in Canada's Alberta province and Alaska.
But what makes this one unique is how well preserved the skull is (75% to 80% complete, which is remarkable for a dinosaur), the fact it's from an older Pachyrhinosaurus (therefore more can be learned from it than a younger version), and, of course, its immense size.
Not that Zelenitsky's team knew all that when they spotted a bumpy rock in mid-October while exploring exposed southern Alberta's Drumheller -- a town that calls itself theDinosaur Capital of the World for a reason, given the outcrops that make it a paleontologists' dream.
A little digging led to more digging and, after about three days, the realization that they'd found a gigantic dinosaur skull. It took several more months (and the removal of 5 tons of rock) to unearth it in three pieces and show it off to the world. Still, a lot of work needs to be done to peel away remaining surrounding rock and examine the skull in more detail, not to mention see it in full.