By Aleksandra Michalska
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The American Museum of Natural History on Thursday revealed the identity of its newest resident: “Apex,” one of the most complete specimens ever discovered of the herbivorous dinosaur Stegosaurus, known for the upright plates on its back and a spiky tail.
To the excited cheers of an audience of schoolchildren, the museum pulled aside a beige curtain to reveal the 3.4-meter-high and 6-meter-long skeleton of the Jurassic period dinosaur.
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“People are very excited about this fossil because Stegosaurus is an iconic dinosaur,” said Roger Benson, the museum’s dinosaur curator.
Stegosaurus walked on four legs and lived in North America during the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago. The fossils were first discovered in the 1870s.
“Although it was a herbivore, Stegosaurus did not look like a cow or a sheep,” Benson said. “It’s a herbivore that can fend for itself. It has these bad points on its tail. It has plates on its back.”
These would have been useful as protection against carnivorous dinosaurs such as Allosaurus.
This Stegosaurus fossil was found in Colorado and fetched a record $44.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in July. The buyer has loaned it to the New York Museum, one of the leading natural history museums in the United States.
“Everyone has their own favorite dinosaur, but Stegosaurus is at the top of the top five, so it’s hard not to get excited about a really complete, large individual of this animal,” Benson said.
(Reporting by Aleksandra Michalska; Writing by Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by Will Dunham)
