Nearly complete tyrannosaur fossil airlifted from Utah’s Grand Staircase
Specimen of T. rex-like Teratophoneus curriei dinosaur is heading to Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City for study and possible display.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Tylor Birthisel, lab & field manager for paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah reaches to control the plaster-encased skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Tylor Birthisel, lab & field manager for paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, points out the Tyranosaurus-Rex skull and how it rested in relation to the rest of the animal's skeleton on field sketches. Later Birthisel helped transport the collected skeleton of a T-Rex from near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
BLM Paleontologist Alan Titus, center, speaks with Taylor Birthisel, left as they discuss the transport the collected skeleton of a T-Rex from near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
BLM Paleontologist Alan Titus smiles as he plays Jeanette Bonnell's mandolin prior to the transport of the skeleton of a T-Rex from near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
One of the plaster-encased bundles of fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, makes it's way to the transport site, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by paleontologist Alan Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Tylor Birthisel, left, and Alan Titus, right work to unload one of the plaster-encased bundles of the fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
BLM paleontologist Alan Titus, left, and volunteer paleontologist Jeanette Bonnell carry one of the heavier plaster-encased bundles of the fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Tylor Birthisel, left, Alan Titus, center, and Jeanette Bonnell, right right work to move some of the plaster-encased bundles of the fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
BLM paleontologist Alan Titus, left, and volunteer paleontologist Jeanette Bonnell carry one of the heavier plaster-encased bundles of the fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologists Alan Titus, left and Tylor Birthisel, center, laugh as they work to position one of the plaster-encased bundles of the fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Alan Titus, left, listens as Taylor Birthisel, talks about the Tyrannosaurus Rex skull that is encased in this plaster-encased bundle after it was airlifted into the back of this truck near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the area where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Taylor Birthisel, left, and Jeanette Bonnell work to unhook the last of the loads airlifted from the site where BLM paleontologist Alan Titus discovered a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologists Alan Titus, left and Tylor Birthisel, as the helicopter carrying a load of fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex bones nears the transport site near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the area where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Tylor Birthisel, loses his hat as the helicopter carrying one of the loads of fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, comes in to be unloaded, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
A fossil of a conifer from the early cretaceous period can be seen in the center of a piece of rock that also encases a bone from the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton he found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Alan Titus points out a fossil of a plant from the early cretaceous period that sits on a rock that also encases a piece of bone from the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton he found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
A group including Jeanette Bonnell, left, Tylor Birthisel, center, and Alan Titus, second from right, work to reposition one of the palster-encased pieces of the Tyrannosaurus Rex found near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where Titus found it in 2015.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Alan Titus makes a photo of one of the bundles of a fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton as it is being loaded near Tropic, Utah, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by Titus.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Paleontologist Alan Titus pats the plaster casing as he spends some personal time with the bundle that encases a fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skull after it was placed in the truck, Sunday, October 15, 2017. He has been waiting for this moment since 2015 when he discovered the nearly complete skeleton at a site near Tropic, Utah. The collected pieces of the animal's skeleton were airlifted and will be later transported to the NaturalHistory Museum in Salt Lake City.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
The dirt road that led to the area near Tropic, Utah, where a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was airlifted out, and will be transported via this road to the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 15, 2017.
Paleontologist Randall Irmis, the curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, gathers tools next to fossils encased in plaster jackets during an expedition in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. Irmis and a team from the museum were excavating the most complete skeleton of a tyrannosaur discovered in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
A cracked fossil from a tyrannosaur skeleton reveals the fossilized marrow inside at the site of a paleontological expedition in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. A team from the Natural History Museum of Utah were at the site excavating the most complete skeleton of a tyrannosaur discovered in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
A paleontologist and field volunteers from the Natural History Museum of Utah encase a fossil in a plaster jacket while on an expedition in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. The team was excavating the most complete skeleton of a tyrannosaur discovered in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
Paleontologist Randall Irmis, the curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, extricates a fossilized rib from the matrix containing the fossilized remains of a tyrannosaur found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. The skeleton was the most complete of its kind found in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
Toe bones, the upper jaw, and snout of the fossilized remains of a tyrannosaur skeleton found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. The skeleton is the most complete of its kind found in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
Randall Irmis, right, a paleontologist and curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and Benn Breeden, a Ph.D. student assisting on Irmis' expedition, encase a fossil in a plaster jacket while on an expedition in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. The team was excavating the most complete skeleton of a tyrannosaur discovered in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
Two years ago, Alan Titus was prospecting for fossils on Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau, searching for new places to unearth paleontological treasures that could reveal secrets about massive and long-extinct land reptiles known as dinosaurs.
Protruding from sandstone he saw some vertebrates, not an uncommon sight in this corner of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that has become renowned as one of the world’s most productive repositories of dinosaur bones dating to the Cretaceous.
But over the next several months of excavation, what Titus, the monument’s resident paleontologist, and colleagues from theNatural History Museum of Utah found was anything but common.
Coming into focus was a well-articulated, nearly complete tyrannosaur, the notorious flesh-ripping, tiny-armed predator.
“It looks like we have the entire skull and most of the body,” said Randy Irmis, the museum’s paleontology curator. “The back part of tail is missing and a few toes. We don’t know yet if the arms are there.”
On Sunday, Titus and museum staffer Tylor Birthisel deployed a helicopter to extract the specimen. It was encased in plaster and flown out in pieces, the largest weighing nearly a ton, for shipment to Salt Lake City.
Toe bones, the upper jaw, and snout of the fossilized remains of a tyrannosaur skeleton found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017. The skeleton is the most complete of its kind found in the Southwest United States. Mark Johnston/NHMU
So far, it appears to be 80 percent intact, the most complete tyrannosaur ever recovered in the American Southwest.
Researchers believe the specimen is a teratophoneus, a relative of T. rex that stood about 12 feet tall and roamed the Earth several million years before its more famous cousin.
The genus name means “monstrous murderer” and was first characterized by Thomas Carr and Thomas Williamson in 2011. The species has been found only in the Grand Staircase.
“This discovery exemplifies the uniqueness of the fossils in the the Staircase,” Irmis said. “Regardless if it‘s a teratophoneus or something new, these are things found only in Grand Staircase. These are world-class paleontological resources.”
That part of the Grand Staircase also contains 9 billion tons of another extractable resource: high-quality, low-sulphur coal.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s undisclosed monument-reduction recommendations are believed to call for pulling the Kaiparowits out of the monument. A leaked memo to President Donald Trump indicates Zinke wants to shrink Grand Staircase, Bears Ears and two other Western monuments, but it does not provide specifics.
Titus’s specimen was embedded in the famed Kaiparowits Formation, a layer of sandstone 2,800 feet thick deposited 76 million to 74 million years ago, just 7 million years before an astroid wiped out most large-bodied animals on Earth.
The discovery could advance dinosaur science because the bones are still together, as if the animal was preserved in the very position in which it died.
“A lot of the bones are articulated. A few things are out of place, but most [of it] is in a life position,” Irmis said. “In fossil records carnivores are rarer than herbivores. These apex predators are the rarest because they are at the top of the food chain.”
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)
One of the plaster-encased bundles of fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found near Tropic, Utah, makes it's way to the transport site, Sunday, October 15, 2017. The collected pieces of the animals' skeleton were airlifted to this site from the site where the skeleton was found in 2015 by paleontologist Alan Titus.
It is unusual to find much of any single dinosaur since so many things can destroy bones over the course of time, including decay, scavengers, weather and geologic forces. This specimen was in the early stages of being exposed when Titus spotted it.
“It has to be exposed for us to find it but not so much that erosion destroys it,” Irmis said. He said he believes the dinosaur’s carcass was buried in a river channel or in a flooding event.
“We still have to do more geological work to figure which it is,” he said.
The find is fortuitous because the museum has specimens representing adult and young teratophoneus. This one, about 17 feet to 20 feet in length, is a juvenile, giving researchers a more complete picture of the creature.
“It can tell us how they change as they grow older,” Irmis said. “Having a complete skeleton helps answers those questions.”