New Dino Stamp Series includes Museum Find
Among 5 prehistoric animals featured in Canada Post's latest Dinos of Canada souvenir stamp sheet is Acrotholus audeti, a species of dinosaur co-described by Vertebrate Paleontology Curator Dr. Michael Ryan and Dr. David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum. Their research was published in the journal Nature Communications in 2013. The stylish stamps depict each animal as a reflection in the eye of a predator or in the eye of one of their own species.
Acrotholus audeti, approximately 6 feet long and weighing about 88 pounds, was a plant-eating dinosaur that inhabited Alberta's lowlands about 85 million years ago. Acrotholus means “high dome,” referring to its dome-shaped skull, which is composed of solid bone over 2 inches thick. Acrotholus represents the oldest bone-headed dinosaur in North America, and possibly the world. The dinosaur walked on two legs and had a greatly thickened, domed skull above its eyes, which was used for display to other members of its species, and may have also been used in head-butting contests.
“We can predict that many new small dinosaur species like Acrotholus are waiting to be discovered by researchers willing to sort through the many small bones that they pick up in the field," Ryan said when the new dinosaur was announced. "This fully domed and mature individual suggests that there is an undiscovered, hidden diversity of small-bodied dinosaurs. So when we look back, we need to reimagine the paleoenvironment. There is an evolutionary history that we just don’t know because the fossil record is incomplete. This discovery also highlights the importance of landowners, like Roy Audet, who grant access to their land and allow scientifically important finds to be made.” The species name ‘audeti’ honors Alberta rancher Roy Audet, on whose land the best specimen was discovered in 2008.
Acrotholus was one of a series of finds made by Ryan and Evans as part of their Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project, which aims to fill in gaps in of the record of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. This project focuses on the paleontology of some of the oldest dinosaur-bearing rocks in Alberta, which have been studied less intensely than those of the famous badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park and Drumheller.
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