6/3/2023 0 Comments Prehistoric kingdom dig sites![]() ![]() The ichthyosaur is considered the state’s most prized discovery, turning up one of the world’s only complete skeletons-a 55-foot behemoth discovered in 1928. Most people in the Reno-Tahoe area have heard of the ichthyosaur, a marine reptile that inspired the name of Great Basin Brewing Company’s Ichthyosaur “Icky” IPA. “I’m hoping to find dinosaurs in at least a few more counties.”Ī ranger at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park gives an introductory presentation to science students from Sierra Nevada College before leading a tour, photo by Martin Gollery “We are filling in that gap of Nevada’s history,” Bonde says of Humphrey’s and his work. But that has left a large part of the state unexplored. And because of the lack of rocks to explore, Nevada is often overlooked while scientists dive into areas with bigger promises of dinosaur fossils and areas where fossils are better preserved. Bonde says the list of Nevada dinosaurs currently known from bones and teeth include duck-billed hadrosaurs, iguanodons, titanosaur sauropods, allosaurs, tyrannosauroids (tyrannosaur ancestors), raptors, ankylosaurs and small bi-pedal plant eaters called hypsilophodonts.ĭue to the geographical changes that shifted the ocean environment to a more mountainous area, the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods are not heavily represented in Nevada in fossil form. “The Cretaceous-age rocks here in Nevada are where we find our dinosaur bones,” says Humphrey, referring to the most recent of the three Mesozoic periods, between 145 and 66 million years ago (the Jurassic Period stretched from 201 to 145 million years ago, and the Triassic Period from 237 to 201 million years ago).Ĭlose to Nevada’s eastern border, where dinosaur fossils are more prevalent, the landscape is similar to that of southern Utah and therefore provides different types of fossils than the rest of the state. The bones have been prepared and now Humphrey is working at the museum-the only working paleontology lab in the state of Nevada-to learn more about the animal they belong to, a project she picked up in 2017 after the bones had sat for about nine years.īecky Humphrey applies a plaster and burlap field jacket to a partial Ice Age mammoth excavated in Amargosa Valley, Nevada, in 2018, courtesy photo If correct, this would mark the first unique dinosaur species to be found in Nevada. Humphrey is also working with remains found by University of Nevada, Las Vegas students in 2008 in Valley of the Fire State Park-fossils that are believed to belong to a new species of hadrosaur, a family of duck-billed dinosaurs. On their radar is the Eureka site where dinosaur remains have been found but not fully excavated. It wasn’t until Bonde and Becky Humphrey, staff paleontologist at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, began searching for dinosaur fossils across the state that dinosaur discovery in Nevada was finally propelled forward. The majority of fossil excavation focused on newer species from the Ice Age or marine reptiles from the Triassic period, such as the ichthyosaur. In fact, up until about 10 years ago, dinosaur remains were scarcely heard of in Nevada. While the finds of ichthyosaurs and other ancient reptiles have been relatively common in the Silver State, the discovery of actual dinosaurs has been few and far between. It is an interesting find, as most of Nevada’s dinosaur fossils have been isolated bones and not a complete animal, or even large parts of an animal, from this time period. Josh Bonde, curator of paleontology at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, who estimates the fossilized remains at the site to be of a creature anywhere from 25 to 30 feet long. “It’s something big is all we know,” says Dr. Josh Bonde holds up an Ice Age bison skull found at Nevada’s Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, courtesy photo
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