Dinosaur Bones Found At Denali National Park In Alaska For The First Time

A team of paleontologists unearthed the first dinosaur bones at the Denali National Park in Alaska during a voyage in July. They said that the bone fragments would likely come from a medium-size to large dinosaur and another remnant might be from a hadrosaur also referred as a duck-billed dinosaur.

Phys.Org reports that the expedition was led by researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Park Service. Pat Druckenmiller, a curator of Earth Sciences at the University of Alaska Museum of the North and the leader of the expedition said that this marks the beginning of a multi-year project to locate, study and document dinosaur fossils in Denali National Park. He further said that this is a world-class site for tracks of dinosaurs and other animals that lived in Alaska in the time of Cretaceous Period.

The discovery consists of four bone fragments. The largest bone fragment measures just a few inches long, which probably parts of larger bones of a big dinosaur. The specimens also are similar to other plant-eating dinosaur bones that were found in some areas of Alaska. They also found a number of dinosaur trackways. These are fossilized impressions of footprints left by dinosaurs staggering in the mud that became a rock, according to Live Science.

There are other dinosaur trackways discovered in Denali National Park for more than years. These belong to ceratopsians, a group of herbivorous dinosaurs including the triceratops, flying reptile knows as pterosaurs and the therizinosaurs, On the other hand, the researchers did not find any bones of the said creatures in the park, until now.

"Now that we have found bones, we have another way to understand the dinosaurs that lived here 70 million years ago, "said Druckenmiller. He further said that the discovery of the bones opens a new chapter in the story of Denali dinosaurs. He also expects to find more remains in the park.