SAN JUAN COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – A team of researchers, including a pair of paleontologists from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, identified a new species of duck-billed dinosaur, which was found in the rocks of northwestern New Mexico, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science announced Monday.
This newly discovered dinosaur, which researchers named Ahshiselsaurus wimani, lived around 75 million years ago and could have grown to more than 35 feet long and weighed around nine tons, according to researchers.
The paper identifying the new species was recently published in the Bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, a scientific journal managed by the museum.
“Discoveries like this remind us that science truly is a community,” said Dr. Anthony Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science and one of the co-authors on the paper. “Our team of researchers spanning five institutions and two countries were able to build upon research that started nearly a century ago and now advances our understanding of what our state looked like during the Late Cretaceous Period.”
Fiorillo worked alongside the museum’s Paleontology Curator, Dr. Spencer Lucas, as well as lead author Sebastian Dalman (Montana State University), and co-authors Steven Jasinski (Harrisburg University), Edward Malinzak (Pennsylvania State University), and Martin Kundrát (Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Slovakia).
The bones of the dinosaur were uncovered in San Juan County by famed collector John B. Reeside, Jr. in 1916. In 1935, the fossils were first classified as belonging to another hadrosaurid called Kritosaurus navajovius. However, new research led to this latest discovery.
It seems like paleontologists are discovering new dinosaurs in New Mexico every few months,” said Lucas. “This new hadrosaur just adds to my conviction that there are many, many new dinosaurs still out there waiting to be unearthed!”
The newly discovered dinosaur was named for the Ah-shi-sle-pah Wilderness in San Juan County, where it was uncovered
For more information about the discovery, click here.
