The fossil of a dinosaur tail was recently unearthed in Alberta, Canada. This news should excite paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts everywhere, since news like this has not been made aware to the public for quite some time. It is always exciting when humans are able to find things that they did not know existed before and whether it is a new species or more evidence of dinosaurs, it is certainly a big deal. There are several types of dinosaurs that have already been discovered, but there is also the possibility of a new species of dinosaurs being found.

The fossil was discovered by a backhoe operator for the Tourmaline Oil Corporation. There was a construction crew working on an oil pipeline in Alberta, when all of a sudden in the middle of their work day, the team made a very rare find when discovering a dinosaur fossil during their digging. What they found was a whole part of a tail and it is possible that more of the dinosaur is buried under the rock. After it was discovered, paleontologist Matthew Vavrek was alerted and came to the scene to inspect. Upon seeing the fossil, he said “As we walked around it, we saw this whole part of a tail of a dinosaur. To see something like that is pretty incredible.” This is pretty extraordinary because paleontologists usually find fossils jumbled up, broken apart, crushed and spread out over a large area, but it is very rare to find a fossil in one piece like this one, according to CNN.

The guy running that backhoe at the time must feel awfully proud of himself, although the happenstance discovery is ironic since other experts spend their lives trying to do what this man did on accident. After thinking he had just chipped off a section of rock, he laid the piece down and continued his excavation work. Vavrek says that if they are able to pull a whole dinosaur out of the ground, it is likely to be about mid-size-as far as dinosaurs go, although it could be larger. The Huffington Post mentions that it could take years to identify what type of dinosaur the tail belonged to, according to what early experts like Vavrek have determined.

The plan is for technicians to use tiny jackhammer-like instruments to buzz away the dirt and reveal the stony skeleton. Even after they uncover it, it could take many years to determine what kind it is, and even longer if it is something new that has never been discovered before. This is a big discovery for the world of science, and hopefully scientists will be able to learn a lot from the finding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgMOumzxs0s

Image via Youtube