In the Utah Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City , paleontology volunteer Randy Johnson is carefully cleaning a fossil. Photography: MARK JOHNSTON, THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF UTAH IN SALT LAKE CITY
Written by: MICHAEL GRESHKO
75 million years ago, a kind of herbivorous ankylosaurus lived on the lost continent of the ancient continent of Laramidia. Today, its remains are found in southern Utah. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is planning to reduce the protection of this national memorial site.
In a study published last Thursday in the journal PeerJ, paleontologists named the new ankylosaurus Akainacephalus johnsoni. Fossils were found in the Great Steps of Utah - the Escalante National Memorial. Among the remains are dinosaur skulls and some bones, including tail hammers. The most prominent feature of this dinosaur is that there are many pyramid-like bone protrusions on its skull.
The continent they live in no longer exists now. At that time, the Inner Sea formed a continent in western North America, which scientists called the ancient continent of Laramidia. This subtropical continent is similar to today's Mississippi , both humid and stuffy, lush and crisscrossing rivers.
Akainacephalus johnsoni lives in the southern part of the ancient continent of Laramidia and seems closer to the ankylosaurus found in Asia than those found in northern mainland. If so, it is very likely that the Ankylosaurus migrated from Asia to the ancient continent of Laramidia many times and developed different populations in the north and south of that lost continent.
Through this discovery, researchers also strongly affirmed the efforts made by fossil cleaners for this, because it is very difficult to remove fossils from the rocks. The newly discovered ankylosaurus is named after Randy Johnson, a volunteer fossil cleaner at the Utah Museum of Natural History, who spent thousands of hours cleaning the skulls and jaws of dinosaurs.
The newly discovered ankylosaurus Akainacephalus johnsoni, the picture above is the reconstruction of their life scenes.
Illustration: ANDREY ATUCHIN, provided by: THE DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE SCIENCE
Research author Jelle Wiersma, a PhD student at James Cook University , wrote in an email: "It was not until the fossil was returned to the museum and Randy Johnson cleaned the skull that we realized it was a new animal."
Memorial area with rich fossil records
In the south of the Great Ladder of Utah-Escalant National Memorial and Bear Ear National Memorial, the records of fossil discoveries are very rich. This discovery made people look there again. However, the Trump administration is trying to cut the two memorial sites by 46% and 85% respectively, which is an unprecedented retreat for public land protection.Although the excavation site of the Ankylosaurus is within the reduced range. But after the boundary narrows, excavation sites that have been discovered in marine reptiles and ceratops fossils will be excluded. The area where the
ankylosaurus fossils is located is part of the Keperovitz Plateau and the focus of competition between paleontologists and the mining industry. There are thousands of square kilometers there, rich in fossil beds and about 62 billion tons of coal. Scientists worry that if not strictly managed, many rare fossils could have been destroyed before they were discovered.
Wiersma said: "For the Akainacephalus johnsoni, which was newly added to the memorial site fossil discovery, as an example, protecting these priceless paleontological resources is of great significance to scientists and the public. Citizens in the United States and the world have the right to know about the newly discovered fossils."
In December 2017, the Vertebrate Paleontology Association sued the Trump administration for cutting national memorial sites in order to achieve this goal. Since then, the case has been filed with lawsuits filed by environmental protection organizations and local Indian tribes. At present, the joint lawsuit is under trial.
(Translator: Sky4)
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