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Show Shoulder Blade as Big as a Man By CHARLES Y. GILMOKL. fU. S Xational Museum, Washington, D. C.) THE Palcontological Department of the U. S National Museum has recently received a shoulder blade of an extincc dinosauriau reptile that in size equals if it does not exceed any .--imilar bone found in North America It measures sixty inches in length, and at least six inches of the lower end is missing, so that tho complete scapula would have had a total length of five and one-half fceL The great size of this bone is graphically depicted de-picted in the accon.pnyms illustration showing a man of average height stnndin? beside if On the opposite Side l8 shown the shoulder blade of an ordinary cow which Is about one-fifth the length of the fosril, so that were these proportions propor-tions maintained throughout the other parts of the foreleg it would indicate an animal that was more than twenty feet high at the shoulders. This proportion, however, as in known from more complete but smaller related forms, Is not maintained, main-tained, though they show that the shoulder height was between 14 andlo feet, a fairly sizable animal at thnt. To those interested In the geological occurrence occur-rence of fossil remains this bone Is of the greatest great-est interest, as it is the first specimen of the particular group of dinosaurs (the Sauropoda, to which it belong) to be found In the Upper Cretaceous a! this continent. Since members of the Sauropoda havo not previously been known later than the Lower Cretaceous, its discovery has made quite a stir in paleontolopical circles. The specimen was found in San Juan Basin of Northwestern Nc Mexico by John B Reesldc jr.. geologist of the United States Geological Survey. While the specimen Is at present known only from two bones of the skeleton, these have such striking peculiarities as to show It to bo a new and as yet unnamed species. From what is known of related animals the approximate shape and proport;ons of this nnimal may be predicted with some degree of certainty. That it bad a very long neck, a longer tall and a relatively short body supported on long ponderous legs, there is hardly a doubt. A restoration of a smaller creature on exhibition exhibi-tion In the Carnogio Institute in Pittsburgh. Pa-shows Pa-shows that fiom tho end of the nose to the tip of the tail It has a length of 87 1-2 feet. The smaller size of its shoulder blade makee it reasonable reason-able to assume that the total length of the animal to which this big scapula belonged was considerably consider-ably in excess of the dimensions given of the Pittsburgh forsll, probably more than 100 feet long. |