The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton
It's a dinosaur that roamed Alberta's badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.They call it "Big Sam."
The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look. When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned "it's actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America."Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.
"It makes them look a little strange. It's the one dinosaur that if you find it, it's the only possible thing it can be."Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.
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