About 45 years of reconstruction yield newly-named Moabosaurus

Brigham Young "Moabosaurus utahensis," a 125-million-year-old dinosaur whose skeleton was assembled using bones extracted from the Dalton Wells Quarry, near Arches National Park, is on display at the BYU Museum of Paleontology in Provo, Utah. photo undated | Photo courtesy of Jaren Wilkey/BYU, St. George News

MOAB (AP) — University officials say they’ve named a dinosaur that they found hidden in Utah.

Brigham Young University professors have created a full picture of the sauropod from thousands of fossilized bones and published a paper Tuesday in the University of Michigan’s Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology.

The creature has been named Moabosaurus because it was found near Moab. Like other sauropods, researchers say it was an herbivore with a long neck and tail and a small brain but it was much smaller, at 32 feet.

The paper says the Moabosaurus is 125 million years old and its skeleton was found in a quarry. Geologist Brooks Britt and his team have been excavating the bones since the late 1970s.

The skeleton is on display at BYU’s Museum of Paleontology.

Editor’s note:  MOAB, Utah (AP) — In a story April 14 about a newly named dinosaur, The Associated Press erroneously attached photos from a different fossil dig in Utah. Those photos have been removed. | A correct photo of Moabosaurus is now featured in this report.

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