Amazing Nodosaur Discovery in Canada called Borealopelta markmitchelii

Borealopelta markmitchelii

At a rock quarry a heavy equipment operator found some evidence of a fossil so he called the Royal Tyrell Museum and they managed to excavate an amazing dinosaur.  It was a Nodosaur, which is a kind of Ankylosaur without a club on its tail.  It was more than just fossilized bones.  It turns out that the entire dinosaur was fossilized!  Skin, organs, everything! 

It lived in a part of Western Canada that during the Cretaceous Period was full of rivers. 
It is thought that it must have died or maybe drown and was washed into the ocean.  It was found in shale, which is a rock that forms from shallow ocean sediment.  The dinosaur died, was washed downstream, and was covered in sediment quickly and so the entire animal was fossilized! 

Paleontologists at the museum were considering cutting into the fossil, but they realized that it was so well fossilized that it would wreck the fossil.  Essentially it all turned to stone so it is a huge dinosaur shaped boulder. 

It will be or is on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum east of Calgary Canada in the province of Alberta. 

Nodosaurs were squat animals built like a tank.  They had spikes in various places and they had thick scale-like armor called osteoderms.  The scales are so think that even a Tyrannosaur could not bite through it.  Even their eyelids were armored!  I think that Nodosaurs look a lot like a giant horned lizard that we used to call a horny toad.  Many of this Nodosaur's osteoderms were still coated with a keratin sheath and that is a very rare find. 

Horned Lizard or Horny Toad

This new Nodosaur weighed around 3,000 lbs (1,361 kg) and was up to 18 (5.5 meters) feet long.  It lived in the mid Cretaceous period around 111 years ago. It received its official scientific name in 2017 and it is called Borealopelta markmitchelii.   The species name is after Mark Mitchell, a technician who chipped the rock away over several years to reveal the amazing complete dinosaur!