Bones found in Utah by Oklahoma researchers are new dinosaur

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NORMAN, Okla. • Bones found in eastern Utah in the mid-1990s by researchers from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History have been determined to be from a newly confirmed type of dinosaur.

The Brontomerus Mcintoshi is described in a paper published Tuesday in the British journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The paper is written by a team of scientists that includes Sam Noble curator of vertebrate paleontology Richard Cifelli.

Cifelli told The Oklahoman that the bones of an adult Brontomerus and a juvenile were rescued from a quarry in Utah that had been looted and damaged — possibly by fossil hunters.

Cifelli and his co-authors classified the new genus based on an incomplete skeleton now held at the Sam Noble museum. It includes bones from the shoulder, hip, ribs and vertebrae.