21.6.09

fossil of the weekend! #30

a cast of the rather magnificent lambeosaurus magnicristatus from dinosaur provincial park. the original is housed at the royal ontario museum, but this cast can be viewed at the royal tyrrell museum.

3 comments:

Paleo King said...

WOW that thing is the Magnacristatus????

I always though it had a more rounded crest... this one just looks like L.lambei with no rear spike!

Great pic, I like how it's mounted as if in a stone cliff... is the original still in the authentic rock in this pose, or is it one of those annoying "plaque mounts" that cover up much of the skeleton?

traumador said...

nima- it sure is!

the answers to your other two questions are a little mixed here as they tie together.

from what i know having not seen the original... (but that will change next year... i have 4 friends all starting their PHDs at the ROM... so hopefully i can sneak in a peek at their collections then)... i can't say any of this for certainty.

what i DO know is that the original was still embedded in its original matrix when this cast was made. i don't know details, but this was what the specimen looked like no later then the early 80's.

since the cast though there has been additional prep done on the specimen, and they have found that not only does the specimen have the rear spike of Lambei, but that it's frontal block is squared too. in other words this another example of an animal whose appearance was through crafted prep, and not the actual specimen.

what i do know is the new "image" for magnacristatus suddenly isn't all that different from lambei. however i'm not sure if there is conterversy on whether they are now thought to be one and the same.

based on a conversation i had with dr. david evans 3-4ish years ago (so i'm fuzzy on details), he still thought they were different. both known magnacristatus were bigger then the 15-20 known lambei (i recall him at the tyrrell to look at a new mag at the time of my talking to him). additional to this size difference both come from clearly defined and different time spans. Lambei's are in the beginning of the dinosaur park formation where the mags show up in the later dino park form.

i'll see if i can contact dr. ryan and get more info for you if you're interested

Anonymous said...

The cast is nice but, based on your answer to Nima's question, Traum, how many species of Lambeosaurus do we know of...out of curiousity?