(NECN/NBC News: Nesita Kwan) - At Chicago’s Field Museum on Friday, scientists showed off bones of a four-ton, 30-feet long predatory dinosaur called Siats Meekeroroum who dominated earth long before T-Rex appeared.
The finding helps fill in a gap in dinosaur history of nearly 60 million years.
"Finding a dinosaur consists of walking for a lot of miles over exposed rock to find bone," explained Peter Makovicky, the Field’s curator of dinosaurs.
At the end of the Field Museum dig in central Utah in 2008, paleontologist Lindsay Zanno uncovered a hip bone.
Makovicky realized they had hit pay dirt.
"As I walked up the hill, noticed exposed bone everywhere… Just the sheer volume told me there was substantial bit of dinosaur inside that hill," said Makovicky.
Close examination of these bones told scientists they had made a first of its kind discovery. A whole new species that pre-dates the T-Rex by thirty million years, Siats Meekeroroum is in an entirely different category.
Local
"We continue working in Utah in hope to find more specimens," Makovicky concluded.
Makovicky says they'll need many more bones to recreate Siats the way they did with the T-Rex, so the dig goes on.
