Bones of Rare Dinosaur Discovered in Colorado

The remains of one of the most ferocious dinosaurs that ever roamed the Earth--a giant, ugly beast with a jaw so big and powerful it could devour a 1,400-pound fellow dinosaur in a single gulp--have been discovered near Ft. Collins, Colo.

The “Monster of Masonville,” as scientists have dubbed the dinosaur because it was found near the town of Masonville, was about 50 feet long and probably weighed at least four tons. The bones include the jaw and portions of the neck and tail vertebrae of only the third Epanterias ever discovered, and they are the first bones from that member of the allosaur family found in more than half a century, said paleontologist Robert Bakker of the University of Colorado.

Bakker said that because skeletons of the meat-eating Epanterias are so rare, and because so little is known about it, the creature is rarely mentioned, even in textbooks. But Bakker, who is one of the leading dinosaur experts in the world, said that when Epanterias roamed North America 130 million years ago it was a fierce beast indeed.

It would have eaten about 40 tons of meat every year and was equipped with claws that “seem to be the longest and strongest of any meat-eating dinosaur that ever lived,” Bakker said.

The Epanterias was as long as the more famous Tyrannosaurus rex and “heavier than the average circus elephant,” he added, but what really set it apart was its mouth. The beast could expand its enormous jaw much like a modern snake, making it possible for it to devour its neighbors in giant bites.

“It was very long, very flexible, and very slinky,” he said of the beast, although drawings he has done would not lead anyone but a paleontologist to think of it as “slinky.” Bakker said in a telephone interview that the tail bones indicate the Epanterias could maneuver quite well despite its immense size, and would have been a formidable foe even for the great brontosaurs.

“They probably would use a lot of quick twitches of the back when they attacked,” he said of the Epanterias. That would enable them to bite down with a row of sharp teeth and then jerk back and forth with a buzz-saw motion. And its long, powerful tail probably allowed the animal to rock back and forth much as kangaroos do today.

The two other Epanterias found were also in the famed Morrison Formation, a geological stratum that extends from Colorado’s Front Range down through the Southwest. It is from that formation that some of the finest dinosaur specimens have been extracted.

“Nearly every type of dinosaur is found in it,” Bakker said of the Morrison Formation. “It’s incredibly rich.”

The other two Epanterias were found in 1877 near Canon City, Colo., and in 1934 in Oklahoma.

The latest find was made by a University of Colorado graduate student, Jim Kirkland, “who I call the Dinosaur Dundee of Colorado,” Bakker said. “He can sniff bones a mile away,” he added.

Kirkland first found a section of the tail, and that was enough to get Bakker and several other experts involved in the dig.

“Now we’re trying to organize a militia of dinosaur hunters to comb the Front Range” of Colorado, he said.

Bakker said he is not sure why only three Epanterias have been found, especially since the latest discovery suggests that they lived throughout the region. “Maybe we just haven’t been looking in the right places,” he said.

The Epanterias was the last species in the evolutionary line of allosaurs, a huge family that included at least 100 different species. Most allosaurs were much smaller than Epanterias, weighing a maximum of only about two tons.

Since it was the largest member of its family, Bakker speculates that dinosaurs tended to get bigger and bigger before they died out. “The incredible size of Epanterias indicates there was some sort of evolutionary arms race going on,” he said.

Dinosaurs continued to roam North America for more than 60 million years after the “Monster of Masonville” died alongside a smaller beast that may have served as its last meal. Most dinosaurs, unlike Epanterias, were plant eaters, and Bakker believes they were warm-blooded and remarkably similar to modern-day birds.

About 66 million years ago, the last of the dinosaurs died out.

Many scientists today believe dinosaurs were wiped out by some cataclysmic event, possibly a collision with an asteroid that created dust storms that lasted so long they cooled the Earth, wiping out critical elements in the food chain.

Bakker and many other paleontologists dispute that, arguing that dinosaurs died out gradually over thousands of years, possibly because of disease, major changes in weather patterns and a loss of food supply.

The “Monster of Masonville” is to go on display at the Greenway Nature Center in Pueblo, Colo., next year.