The American Museum of Pure Historical past on Thursday revealed the identification of its newest resident – “Apex,” one of the vital full specimens ever found of the herbivorous dinosaur Stegosaurus, identified for its vertical plates on its again and spiked tail.
To excited gasps from an viewers of schoolchildren, the museum pulled again a beige curtain to disclose the 11-foot-tall, 20-foot-long skeleton of the Jurassic Interval dinosaur.
“Individuals are actually enthusiastic about this fossil as a result of Stegosaurus is an iconic dinosaur,” stated the museum’s dinosaur curator, Roger Benson.
Stegosaurus walked on 4 legs and lived in North America about 150 million years in the past, through the Jurassic Interval. Its fossils have been first found within the 1870s.
“Though it was a herbivore, Stegosaurus was not like a cow or a sheep,” Benson stated. “It is a herbivore that is aware of methods to care for itself. It is received depraved spikes on its tail. It is received plates on its again.”
They might have been helpful as safety in opposition to carnivorous dinosaurs like Allosaurus.
This stegosaurus fossil was present in Colorado and fetched a file $44.6 million at a Sotheby’s public sale in July. The client loaned it to the New York Museum, one of many essential pure historical past museums in the USA.
“Everybody has their favourite dinosaur, however Stegosaurus is within the prime 5. So it’s arduous to not get excited a few actually massive, full particular person of this animal,” Benson stated.
