© AP PhotoThe new dinosaur named Brontomerus mcintoshi or 'thunder-thighs'
Of all the work that palaeontologists do, perhaps nothing is as exciting as recognising and naming a new dinosaur.
I've now had the privilege of doing this twice - once in 2007, with Xenoposeidon, and now with Brontomerus. Both times, I've been the beneficiary of others' work: the Xenoposeidon fossil was found in 1893, but never properly studied until I happened across it in the basement of the Natural History Museum. Similarly, Brontomerus was excavated by the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in 1994, but museum staff were too busy on other projects to give it the attention it deserved until I and some colleagues visited in 2007.
Staff in both museums were gracious in allowing an outsider to come in and work on their fossils.
The new dinosaur is particularly exciting because although only about 10 per cent of the skeleton is preserved, the bones hint at unusual and exotic behaviour.
The hip bone has a huge area for attachment of thigh muscles - more than twice that of most other sauropods, suggesting twice as much thigh muscle. This gave us the name for our new dinosaur: Brontomerus means "thunder thighs". But because the expanded part of the bone is towards the front of the animal, it presents us with a puzzle.
