Dinosaur bones found

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 37

Dinosaur bones found

NZPA-Reuter Stephenville, Texas One of the world’s largest dinosaur graveyards has been discovered on a remote Texas lakebed, containing the 100 million-year-old remains of a previously unknown reptile, according to scientists.

Louis Jacobs, of Southern Methodist University, and Phillip Murry, of Tarleton State University, both paleontologists who are leading a project to excavate the bones from Proctor Lake, in central Texas, said the skeletons represented at least one new kind of dinosaur.

One of the dinosaur skeletons is related to planteating camptosaurids, reptiles that lived more than 100 million years ago and walked on two legs, the paleontologists said. “In terms of both quality and abundance of fossils, this ranks among the most productive sites in the world,” Mr Jacobs said. Four complete skeletons less than 3.10 metres long and several partial remains have been excavated. Dozens more are probably be buried in the thick red earth, about 241 km southwest of Dallas, say the scientists.

The first bones were discovered last month by a geology student who was walking round the lakeshore’ looking for fossils. The newly discovered skeletons are older than the tracks made by giant dinosaurs at Dinosaur Valley State Park at nearby Glen Rose, Texas.