A Nevada paleontologist said Monday that he thinks apparent dinosaur bone fossils found at a state park about 20 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip could date to the late Triassic period and might be the oldest land animal ever found in the state.
Josh Bonde, a geoscience teacher and paleontology research associate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a brief telephone interview that the fossilized backbone vertebrae come from a layer of rock some 220 million to 230 million years old.
There’s no positive identification yet, but Bonde told the Las Vegas Review-Journal
‘It’s something big … these are great big vertebrae.’
- Josh Bonde, a geoscience teacher and paleontology research associate at the University of Nevada
He said the bones might have belonged to a phytosaur, an early ancestor of the crocodile, or a metoposaur, a giant amphibian with a broad, flat, triangular head.
“It’s something big,” Bonde said. “These are great big vertebrae.”
Researcher trying to identify, date dinosaur fossil found in state park outside Las Vegas
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