Sept Dig Trip: Black Hills Institute

[Troodon]

I'll break my trip report to South Dakota into two parts.  First will be my visit to the BHI followed by collecting adventure

 

 

The purpose of going to the BHI was to pick up the Leptoceratops maxilla's I left during my June trip.  Pete has been collecting and pulling together specimens to understand and possibly describe this ceratopsid in the Hell Creek.  The material he's collected so far appears to be from an adult and is much smaller than L. gracilis.   My maxilla's seem to fit the smaller morphotype.

In addition, the BHI provided me two sets of replicas of my specimens, pretty cool.

 

 

 

Tankankaceratops is a controversial ceratopsian described by Ott and Larsen 2010.   It's a small Triceratopsini known from a partial skull.

Pete showed me its occipital condyle which is fused and indicative of an adult.

 

 

Very cool nasal horn core.

 

 

Here is a close up of Struthiomimus sedens hand/part of arm... the business end.  Good reference photos

 

 

 

 

A new addition to the museum is a cast of a juvenile Tarbosaurus skeleton that was being assembled in June trip

 

 

 

Here is some White River material that was recently collected.

Think Pete said the top left skull was a rare Camelidae

 

 

Hespercyon

 

Took photos for reference of the metatarsals from Nanotyrannus 

 

 

 

 

Another reference bone a Nanotyrannus carpal bone, much longer than any found on T rex.

 

 

 

[Troodon]

I needed a bone identified so Pete started to look at the skeletons in the museums

 

 

To my surprise there was a new addition to the museum a replica of Dakotaraptor steni.  The BHI did the mould pours and Robert DePalma the design.  It was big for a raptor and awesome.  The toe bone did wind up belonging to Dakotaraptor

 

 

 

Chomping a baby Triceratops

 

 

 

 

Hand

 

Hand

 

Foot

 

 

Very Stiff Tail

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

[Troodon]

Let me add that Pete and the rest of the folks at the BHI are super and if you are in the area its a must visit.   I had a nice chat with Bob Farrar's wife and she gave me a history of the building that goes back to the 30's.  For those you that have not looked down they have left the orginal basketball court floor  with paint when they moved in the 70's.  

[Nimravis]

Frank- great post and pics. Yes that is a nice WR Camel skull. I do love the groves on the Struthiomimus sedens claws.

[Phos_01]

17 hours ago, Troodon said:

A new addition to the museum is a juvenile Tarbosaurus skeleton that was being assembled in June trip

 

Surely this is a cast right? Perhaps they keep the real bones inside lockers, and casts for the audience 

I saw some images before when he was assembling it, it looks stunning, love the detail fantastic animal. 

 

[Troodon]

28 minutes ago, Phos_01 said:

Surely this is a cast right? Perhaps they keep the real bones inside lockers, and casts for the audience 

I saw some images before when he was assembling it, it looks stunning, love the detail fantastic animal. 

 

Oh yea I edited it to indicate replica

[fossilhunter21]

Very cool post, and nice pics! I especially enjoy those WR specimens. 

 

I wonder what this skull is. Maybe a canid skull? Whatever it is, it is pretty awesome looking.

 

Thank you for sharing! 

 

-Micah

[rfarrar]

Hespercyon

[ChrisMouM]

On 9/29/2022 at 4:13 AM, Troodon said:

juvenile Tarbosaurus skeleton

Hi, man. did Tarbosaurus have stereopsis?