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Washington's First Dino Bone on Display

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Brace yourselves, dino-lovers: Burke Museum paleontologists have discovered the first dinosaur fossil ever found in Washington state!

The 80-million-year-old fossil is a partial left femur bone of a theropod dinosaur, the group of two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs that includes Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds. It was collected by Burke Museum paleontologists along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands in May 2012 in an incredible instance of the right people being in the right place at the right time.

Burke Museum Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Dr. Christian Sidor and University of Washington graduate student Brandon Peecook have described the find in the journal PLOS ONE. “This fossil won’t win a beauty contest,” Sidor said. “But fortunately it preserves enough anatomy that we were able to compare it to other dinosaurs and be confident of its identification.”

As the Washington State Museum of Natural History and Culture, we’re so excited to display Washington’s first dinosaur fossil in our lobby and share it with you.

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