Paleontologists have discovered the first dinosaur fossil that has ever been uncovered in the state of Washington.
The history-making fossil is a partial left thighbone of a theropod dinosaur, which is a group of two-legged carnivores that includes Velociraptor, and Tyrannosaurus rex, the Burke Museum reported. It was discovered along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands.
The fossil is believed to be from about 80 million years ago, when the islands were located farther south than they are today. Scientists are not sure exactly how far south the islands resided, but have suggested it may have been as far as Mexico; events such as earthquakes gradually pushed these features northwards to their current Washington location.
The fossil was discovered embedded in a rock by two Burke Museum research associates who were searching for sea ammonite fossils. A month later, a crew of Burke paleontologists returned to the site with permits to excavate the large bone. After spending a year removing the rock surrounding the fossil, the team identified it as a partial left femur of a theropod dinosaur.
"This fossil won't win a beauty contest," said Christian Sidor, Burke Museum Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology. "But fortunately it preserves enough anatomy that we were able to compare it to other dinosaurs and be confident of its identification."
The fossil is 16.7 inches long and 8.7 inches wide, but since it was incomplete the researchers could not determine exactly what species it belonged to. They were able to calculate that the femur would have been over three feet long, but was too small to belong to a T. rex.
"The fossil record of the west coast is very spotty when compared to the rich record of the interior of North America," said University of Washington graduate student Brandon Peecook . "This specimen, though fragmentary, gives us insight into what the west coast was like 80 million years ago, plus it gets Washington into the dinosaur club!"
The fossil was described in a recent edition of the journal PLOS ONE.
