Lena Giudi

Prof.'s curiosity led to new dinosaur discovery

In 2003, Jason Moore was on a walk with his parents along the Idaho-Wyoming border when he noticed pieces of bone sticking out of a hillside. Moore became immediately interested and began to search the rock face for more fragments. He and his parents soon discovered that the bones belonged to a dinosaur skeleton buried beneath the rock outcropping.Not only did the discovery double the number of dinosaur bones found in Idaho, but the dinosaur turned out to be a new species entirely. Further excavations revealed the specimen to be a type of nodosaur, an armored dinosaur that walked on four legs, had a clubbed tail and lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, Moore said.