About Fossil
Here is my fossil. Behind the house, a bulldozer cut through the bank of a small hill to take the dirt for a highway. I needed stones for a walk and thought that would be a good place to find them. I found two good-sized black rocks among the orangish clay dirt and, carried them back to place them under a tree near the house. Being time for a break I turned over a bucket, sat on it and looked down on one of the black rocks. I clearly saw a dinosaur in it.
I was so excited. The dinosaur was so clear I didn’t think it would take more than a little cleaning to bring him out. What a laugh. It took much research and three years. My entire home became a workplace with work trays of chemicals, homemade tools, books, and more books.
I tried to take a magnified picture of his skin 10X but it’s not good. He (and he is a guy as you can see his gonads)He is approximately 18 inches tall standing. His feet were paddles so he did spend time in the water. He has a pink snout. I do have a name for him but I will have to look it up. Three of a similar dinasaur have been found in South America. Part of a skeleton has been found in Montana, but paleontologists have pooh-poohed that find as they have mine. Mine was found in Kalispell Mt.
Details of Heterdontosaures
I found this flat black rock in the raw yellow clay where the road department had cut off the hill to take the dirt for the highway. My fossil was found six miles south of Kalispell, Montana on the West side of Highway 93. The hill is about 500 yardsWest of the highway behind a row of buildings. I found other black, flat rocks with paper thins, but no more dinosaurs. I did find many other fossils, some in hard,white rocks but most in black rocks.
This area, according to geological data, is not suppose to have any fossils, but I found other people who had fossils found in this area. I also took photos of large rocks with fossils in a path around the lake. I found no bones in these fossils, only paper thins and casts. Most of the fossils were smaller than two inches. None that I found looked as if damaged before death causing me to believe they died naturally. Most were clumped together. After finding the dinosaur, I looked at six other areas nearby and found small fossils at each of them. The areas of search were within two miles of the original find.
Details of Tino
He is a heterdontosauras, fabrosaurides from the early jurassic period. He does have horns, two above his snout and one on his upper head. Another tusk may have been on his lower jaw though this is not definite. Some of his bones are intact, some vertebrae, the skull, a lower arm bone, the fingers with claws or nails readily seen and the inverse pubic bone identifies him as a dinosaur according to Benton in Vertebrate Pathology. He also has a penis and scrotum midway up his belly area.
Sitting, the fossil is 12 inches tall. He stood eighteen inches.
The Head
The skull is well preserved and the details are quite clear. The jaw has sharp triangular teeth that fit top with bottom. It does not look like the front of the jaw has teeth, though this is not absolute.
There is at least a space between the back teeth and where the front teeth might have been. He may have not had a tusk on the lower jaw that fit into the side of the upper jaw, but his tusk, whatever it was is now no more than a stump. It is pink in color as is the snout, which may mean it was a softer tissue rather than calcified bone.
He has a lip structure along his mouth. The horny protrusion on the lower jaw, the protrusion above the eyeball and the snout all have a pinkish color.
The nose looks more like a snout and has retained a different color, rather a pink shade. Above the snout is a tusk on either side coming up angled slightly out from the eyes. The bone above the eyes protrudes over the eyes. The eyeball is clear with the iris that is almond shaped.
At the top of his head is a horn of sorts. It may have been of gristle or some kind of hair. In cleansing this area, strands bound together could be seen. He has a crest at the back of his head. This is clearly preserved. The ear is faintly shown behind and below the eyes.
The neck area has a covering much like a horse’s mane of material that comes from the crest on the top of the head. There is no shoulder bone nor upper arm bone. The lower arm bone is long and clearly defined as are the hands and fingers. Black claws or nails are at the end of the fingers and these can be seen distinctly darker at the end of the fingers.
There is an indication of a breastbone, which has not been preserved, but the belly area is held clearly out from beneath the neck.The way the belly comes up and then goes inward at a certain point near the top indicates something was holding the skin in place.
The ribs are gone, but there are strong indentations where they were formed against the backbone. The backbone has deteriorated, but there are some fairly clear backbones. On the back of the upper backbones is an area reinforced with a bony structure that was to support the phalanges on the back. All bones in the phalanges are missing.
Inside the belly some structures are seen that could have been organs. One, an oval area near the backbone was filled with an orange powder when I reached it. This disintegrated immediately. I’m wondering if this could have been the lungs.
The inverted pubic bone is intact and complete.
Some original skin surface shows on the belly.
Below the belly, in the circle formed by the claw on the feet, is an opening going from inside the belly to the outside. On the outside is a penis sitting on a testicle.
These are high up on the belly.
The tail is short and stumpy directly off the back and above the legs.
The legs are short and stumpy with three joints. The bones are missing.
The skin traces the joints. The feet are paddle feet for swimming in water.
