80 Million Year Tail Fossil Reveals Dinosaur Tracks Similar to Camels in Canada

Illustration of Ornithomimus. (Julius Csotonyi/University of Alberta - The Independent)

JAKARTA - An 80-million-year-old tail bone fossil has been found on Denman Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. This small find gives a big clue that a dinosaur like a camel-like bird once lived on the Pacific coast of North America.

Citing a report by The Independent, Thursday, May 28, the fossil comes from a group of dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurus. They belong to the theropod dinosaurs, move on two legs, have a slender body, a small head, a long neck, and a beak without teeth.

Its shape makes this dinosaur often compared to modern ostriches. The difference is, this is an ancient version of the Cretaceous period, about 145 million to 66 million years ago.

The fossil found was only a tail bone or caudal vertebra. Because the findings were incomplete, researchers could not determine the exact species.

To examine the origin of the fossil, researchers performed CT scans and created a 3D model. The model was then compared with the tail bones of ornithomimosaurus and tyrannosaurus from museum collections.

The result, the fossil is most similar to the tail bone of ornithomimosaurus. Researchers suspect that the bone is the 10th tail bone of the two-legged dinosaur.

What remains a mystery is how the bones ended up on Denman Island.

In a study published in the journal FACETS, researchers mentioned several possibilities. The bone could have been detached from a floating carcass, carried away by waves or currents around the coastline, or moved by scavengers.

"All of these evidence suggest that the ornithomimosaur represented by the fossil lived on the western edge of North America," the researchers wrote in the study.

This finding is important because it provides more clear evidence that the ostrich-like dinosaur not only lived in other parts of North America, but also once explored the Pacific coastal region.

However, there are still many unanswered questions. Researchers say the difference between this dinosaur and ornithomimosaurus from other regions of North America can only be determined if there are additional fossils.

For the time being, researchers can only confirm that the tail fossil from Denman Island is strong evidence of the existence of ornithomimosaurus on the west coast of North America.