LAUREL, Md. — A large dinosaur discovery right here in Maryland.
It happened during an April dig at the Dinosaur Park in Laurel.
Local paleontologists are calling it the largest fossil discovery in Eastern North America.
It's a three-foot shin bone believed to have come from a 38-foot long Acrocanthosaurus, a carnivorous ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus Rex that lived 115 million years ago.
It's not the first time dinosaur fossils have been dug up at the park. Discoveries were made going back as early as 2018.
This latest one, however, elevated the park to what's known as "bonebed" status, the first of its kind in Maryland since 1887.
The first fossil found at the site was a four-foot-long limb bone of a large unidentified dinosaur, encased in ironstone.
“Finding a bonebed like this is a dream for many paleontologists as they can offer a wealth of information on the ancient environments that preserved the fossils and provide more details on the extinct animals that previously may have only been known from a handful of specimens,” said JP Hodnett, the Paleontologists and Program Coordinator at Dinosaur Park, who made this latest discovery. “Most paleontologists have to travel across the country or go overseas to find something like this, so having this rare find so close to home is fantastic!”
Next, the fossils will be excavated from the field before being cleaned, examined, and cataloged.
