Green Tea and Velociraptors

Several links already summarise most of what is already known:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2011/december/new-horned-dinosaur-hidden-for-90-years-in-museum106428.html

http://www.alfmuseum.org/in-the-news/112-new-dinosaur-named-by-alf-scientist

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Long+ignored+fossil+determined+species+horned+dinosaur/5816853/story.html 

I just wanted to spread the word a bit, and also show this picture I just found of the actual specimen!

I took this photo last year while volunteering in the NHM. Copyright of the image goes to the Natural History Museum, London (I think).

It just goes to show that museum collections are invaluable in terms of historical significance. If this is now a new holotype specimen, it’s value to the scientific community is now greatly increased. Congrats to Andy Farke et al. for spotting the value of this beautiful specimen, now the newly erected taxa Spinops sternbergorum. I just wish I’d noticed first and swiped the publication 😉

I just hope this taxon doesn’t suffer that same indignity as many others have recently, in being made redundant, not representing new genera/species, but in fact representing juvenile morphs of pre-described taxa. This is summarised in a neat presentation by John Horner in the video below. Most of what he talks about is in easy to find published articles.