That incredibly well-preserved armored dinosaur is actually a new species
The discovery itself was amazing.
A dinosaur was found in Canada around 110 million years after it died. National Geographic covered the accidental discovery in its June issue and created a 3-D rendering to show how well-preserved the dinosaur fossils were in an ancient river bank.
The discovery was back in 2011. Since then, researchers have determined the armored beast that weighed almost 3,000 pounds is a new species of nodosaur.
It's called Borealopelta markmitchelli, according to a study released Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
The new species, which once roamed what is now Alberta, Canada, is from the Early Cretaceous period. Only the front half of the dinosaur was found intact -- but it's still impressive to see the nodosaur from its face to its hip.
The researchers gave it its name for the word "borealis" (Latin for "northern," because, well, Canada) and "pelta" (Greek for "shield," because of its shield-like armor). Markmitchelli comes from Royal Tyrrell Museum technician Mark Mitchell who spent thousands of hours working on the fossils and preparing them to preserve key features.
Mitchell told NatGeo that he put his "hands up in the air and cheered" when he heard what the new species was named.
Topics Animals
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
