Wired News: New Dinosaur Stumps Scientists.
A curious piece of bone spotted by a University of Pennsylvania professor during a horseback ride in southern Montana led to the discovery of a new dinosaur with a long neck, a whip-like tail and a mysterious extra hole in its skull.
The new find — a Suuwassea emilieae — is a sauropod, a classification of plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails, small heads and four elephant-like legs. At 50 feet long, it’s a smaller cousin of better-known sauropods Diplodocus and Apatosaurus.
The 150-million-year-old creature is described (PDF) by scientists in the current issue of the paleontology journal, Acta Paleontologica Polonica.
“It has a number of distinguishing features, but the most striking is this second hole in its skull, a feature we have never seen before in a North American dinosaur,” said Peter Dodson, senior author of the research study….
Scientists are probably over-thinking this. NewMexiKen’s theory is that one day this dinosaur said “I need that like I need a hole in the head” and another dinosaur obliged him.