🦖 #7 on our top 10 favorite finds of the year: this fossilized tooth from a Hell Creek tyrannosaur!!! Yours truly lucked out seeing this tooth sticking out root-first from a hillside in Hell Creek formation, South Dakota. Our dino dig in July was a fabulous and informative experience, and digging fossils from the last dinosaurs to walk the earth during the Late Cretaceous period was so cool. With research throughout the year, we’ve settled on this tooth most likely being from a Nanotyrannus, a smaller species of tyrannosaur with some marked differences from its bigger cousin Rex. (Debate rages in the scientific community about whether this distinct species of tyrannosaur is valid, or if it’s all juvenile T.Rex fossils; contemporary dino diggers lean toward the validity of the separate species.)
Long before I knew about minerals, I dreamt about being a paleontologist (Jurassic Park kid!), so this was a lifelong dream coming true for me. We can’t wait to return to Hell Creek formation! 🦖 #toptenfindsof2024 #dinosaurs #nanotyrannus #nanotyrannustooth #dinosaurtooth #jurassicparkkid #jurassicpark #dinosaurfossils #cretaceousdinosaurs #hellcreek #hellcreekformation #southdakota #phenomenalgems
