Rare Complete Dinosaur Skeleton Discovered

Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 1:32:43 pm PDT

A team of Japanese and Mongolian researchers announced a rare find today: a very well-preserved complete fossilized skeleton of a young dinosaur known as a Tarbosaurus, discovered two years ago in the Gobi desert. This type of theropod lived about 70 million years ago in the Cretaceous Period, and was a predator related to the tyrannosaurus, weighing more than a ton when fully grown. Comments on the meaning of the find: Laelaps : A new juvenile Tarbosaurus.

An interesting note is that the research was conducted by a natural history museum owned by a private high tech company: Greg Laden’s Blog : Gobi Dinosaur is ‘complete skeleton’.

Hayashibara Museum of Natural Science of Hayashibara Group and Matsushita Electric Indutrial Co., Ltd. plan to develop new cultural facility “Digital Museum-Dinosaur Factory-” inside “Panasonic Center” which will be a base for receiving and sending information and will open in the autumn 2002. The museum is designed to foster children’s creativity, satisfy their curiosity and spirit of inquiry, and share the joy of discovery in the process of dinosaur research. The facility will be a new type of museum where each guest can easily obtain information, utilizing state-of-the-art digital technology from Matsushita, about specimens of dinosaur fossils and research results in the possession of Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences.

Now there’s a museum I can wholeheartedly support.