Research has confirmed that a partial skeleton discovered in Saskatchewan is a new species of plant-eating dinosaur.
The new species has been named Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis after Saskatchewan’s historic District of Assiniboia, in which it was found.
“It’s not every day a new species of dinosaur is identified and this is a great reminder of the richness of Saskatchewan’s fossil record,” Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Bill Hutchinson said.
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The 66 million year old specimen was collected from the Frenchman River Valley near Eastend in 1968 by Albert E. Swanston while working for the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History (now the Royal Saskatchewan Museum) in Regina.
Nearly 40 years after it was discovered, the specimen was studied and identified as a new species as part of a Masters thesis by Caleb M. Brown at the University of Calgary, his supervisor, Dr. Anthony P. Russell and co-author Clint Boyd of the University of Texas at Austin.
“The new dinosaur lived alongside Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops at the very end of the age of dinosaurs and is notable for its small size compared to other contemporary herbivores – similar in size to a white-tailed deer,” said Brown.
“This discovery suggests smaller dinosaurs were more diverse than previously thought immediately before the extinction event.”
The bones are on display at the T.rex Discovery Centre in Eastend.
Eastend is approximately 320 southwest of Regina.
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