They were never in the same place at the same time, yet three renowned scientists, working in tandem, came up with a new dinosaur |
Gorgosaurs were close relatives to the well-known Tyrannosaurus rex, huge beasts, up to 45 feet long and weighing as much as five tons. This skull was small, supposedly the remains of a baby gorgosaur. But it just didn’t look like a gorgosaur to Bakker. He told as much to the museum’s curator, Michael Williams, but he couldn’t prove his hunch.
A week later, the famous fossil-finder had flown to Alberta, Canada, to visit Philip Currie, assistant director for collections and research, at the Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. Bakker knew, of course, that Currie was curator of paleontology’s prototype gorgosaurus, the Tyrell Museum’s specimens had been used to describe the genus. So Bakker asked for a look. It wasn’t a match. "I started scribbling things madly on...