A Marvelous Little Lizard

Photo by Ben Jacobson, Burpee Museum of Natural History

What a marvelous little lizard Thescelosaurus is. Discovered in the Cretaceous rocks of Alberta, Canada, then later in South Dakota, this small bipedal ornithopod was running around the forests that housed the largest ceratopsians and tyrannosaurs of the end of the age of dinosaurs. Its sturdy limbs and pointed nose were probably very good at rooting out food items in the underbrush and the grasses of the fields as well. Its history as a fossil as seen some rather odd happenings, including the supposed find of a fossilized heart. We can discuss that at a later time though. It has also been thought to have contained original integument fossilized with some of the original specimens that were described by Charles Gilmore in 1913 (as Thescelosaurus neglectus).