A scientist literally stumbled upon a 166 million year old dinosaur fossil while walking on the beach in Scotland.
© Tim Ireland
A member of staff at the museum presents a photograph of the most complete Stegosaurus fossil ever discovered at the Natural History Museum in London, England, on Wednesday, December 3, 2014. The 150 million year old specimen is about a 4×4 car and consists of more than 300 bones. It was discovered in 2003 at Red Canyon Ranch in Wyoming, USA.
Dr. Elsa Panciroli of National Museums of Scotland found the ancient bones on a beach on the island of Eigg while on her way with her paleontology research team.
The bone is only about 50 cm long, but is thought to have belonged to a stegosaurus or a similar dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic period. Past fossil discoveries on the island were all marine dinosaurs as well as prehistoric fish.
Stegosaurs were large, about the size of a city bus, plant eaters with rows of bones, pointed plates on their backs, making them look even larger and long tails that had defensive spikes, according to Live Science.
“It was a bit of a serendipitous discovery,” Drs. BBC Panciroli. It was the very end of the day and I ran to catch up with the rest of the team members, who were quite far away. I realized I was overdoing something that didn’t look right. It was not clear then what kind of animal it belonged to, but there was no doubt that it was a dinosaur bone. ”
The Edinburgh-based scientist added that earlier fossils found in Scotland were confined to the Isle of Skye and fossils from that period were rare finds throughout the world.
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