Hi, I'm curator of paleontology Dr. Julia McHugh and we are here in
Dinosaur journey, we are close to the public at the moment
but we still wanted to bring you lots of fun good dinosaur content to watch online in case
You had a hankering for dinosaurs and couldn't come to the museum. So today what we would like to talk about our
holotypes, now I know what you're thinking
What in the world is a holotype well holotypes are actually pretty darn cool a
Holotype is a fossil or a set of fossils. That is
Discovered by a paleontologist and is used to erect a new
species
so in our case
I'm standing right next to a case of holotype mussels from mymorapelta
Mymorapelta was discovered back in the late 80s early 90s
It was finally published in 1991 by Dr.
Jim Kirkland and Ken carpenter and at the time it was published it was the first and only ankylosaur
known from the Jurassic period which was a big deal up until that point ankylosaurs were only known from the Cretaceous period
so this filled in a gap in the fossil record and
The bones that are here on display are the very bones
That were figured in that first paper and used to establish mymorapelta as a brand-new species
This animal was found from at the Mygatt-Moore quarry, which is out in Rabbit Valley
Hence the name my Mymora for Mygatt-Moore
The name means the shield of Mygatt and Moore. Ankylosaurs
are armored dinosaurs have lots of bony armor to protect them from predators. hence the shield in the name. That's the pelta
so
Most museums keep their holotype specimens in collections under lock key. They're very important scientifically
They can never be replaced
But we decided that we wanted you guys to be able to see them. So we have our holotype specimens out on display
We do have more specimens that we have since collected from this animal that are in our collections
And we have a reconstructed cast skeleton in the museum as well!
