Sask. scientists discover multimillion-year-old fossils, including skulls

R E GINA Scientists at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum uncovered several multimillion-year-old fossils around the province over the summer.

Emily Bamforth, curatorial assistant for paleontology, discovered a skull from an Edmontosaurus — a duck-billed dinosaur — near Shaunavon, Sask. It’s only the second skull discovered in the province since the first was found in 1924.

“Skull material, especially of duckbill dinosaurs and theropods, is very rare,” Bamforth said Wednesday. “But (it) is a treasure trove of information about the species and about the animal itself. So finding a skull, any skull, is very significant.”

The Edmontosaurus was common in Saskatchewan near the end of the dinosaur era. Bamforth estimates the skull is 65 million years old.

She said her team will go back next summer to see if they can find the rest of the dinosaur’s skeleton, including the front of the skull, the lower jaw and its body.

Bamforth also found a handful of teeth from an ankylosaur that date back 74 million years.

Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology with the museum, discovered pieces of amber that contained parts of insects, including a new species of wasp. He said the species were around during the Cretaceous period.

“I almost did cartwheels when the students turned up the first insect

from Saskatchewan amber,” McKellar said. “We’ve been working very hard for this.”

McKellar said Saskatchewan has a good range of exposed rocks, which makes it an ideal spot for discovery.

The team also discovered the skull of a baby elasmosaur, a longnecked plesiosaur that lived in water, and a tibia or shin bone of a juvenile brontothere, a 38-millionyear-old rhino-like mammal.

Hallie Street, a curatorial assistant at the museum, said it’s one of the first limb bones discovered from a juvenile brontothere and

Skull material … is a treasure trove of information about the species and about the animal itself.

helps researchers better understand the creature’s biology.

Several bones of a triceratops, the largest of the horned dinosaurs, were found near Grasslands National Park. Triceratops bones were first reported to the museum in 2012 and researchers have been finding different elements ever since.

The new fossils will be studied over the winter until next summer’s fieldwork begins again.

RYAN MCKENNA /THE CANADIAN PRESS The skull from an Edmontosaurus, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum’s research building in Regina, is the second found in Saskatchewan, with the first found in 1924.