The specimen has been identified as a member of the Thescelosaurus, meaning ''marvelous lizard,'' genus. Its species has not been determined. For the time being, the dinosaur usually goes by the nickname Willo, after the wife of the rancher on whose land it was found.
When Mr. Hammer saw a huge lump of stone beneath the well-preserved ribs, he said he suspected that the chest cavity might still hold some internal organs. The first C.T. scan by Dr. Kuzmitz seemed to show a heart inside the stony shell, but the two-dimensional images left ROOM for doubt. Then imaging specialists at North Carolina State's College of Veterinary Medicine used new software to produce three-dimensional pictures.
''Once the computer software put all the 2-D images together into a 3-D model, it became very apparent that, yeah, this was the real thing,'' said Mr. Fisher, director of the imaging resource facility. ''You could see both ventricles and the aorta.''