NOTE: Scroll down to see more posts about the animals of the Saints and Sinners Quarry. You can also scroll down and then click on the above "Free Printable Downloads" button and scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the names of these animal drawings. You can print any of the drawings on the list to color.
As I posted before, we went to an active dinosaur dig or quarry last Saturday. This post is about other animals that they found there. Some were also found at Dinosaur National Monument.
Brasilichnium and a New Pterosaur
At and/or near Dinosaur National Monument Dr. Britt of Brigham Young Univeristy, Dr. Engelmann of the U of Nebraska, and Dr. Chure of Dinosaur National Monument have found many tracks and some fossils of a small mammal or maybe proto-mammal. It is called Brasilichnium. It was a smaller animal, about a foot or .3 meters long. It was built a bit like a mole and clearly lived in burrows.
They also found a new or previously unknown Pterosaur at the site. This flying reptile must have hunted the mammals. It lived in a sand dune desert. It even had 4 one inch fangs. It also had a lower jaw that was longer than the upper jaw. It's wingspan was about 4.5 feet or 1.3 meters long. It actually had a total of 110 teeth!
The site where these animals were found included one of the first dinosaurs called Coelophysis and mini proto-crocodiles called Sphenodonts. (see previous posts). This site was an oasis with a lake in the middle of the sand dune desert that now is turned to sandstone, (sometimes called frozen dunes).
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