1.6" Hadrosaur Ungal (Claw) - Alberta (Disposition #000028-29)

Hadrosaur Ungal (Claw) - Alberta (Disposition #-) #183273

First, a note on the legality of this fossil. Alberta has very strict laws pertaining to fossil collection. Fossils may not be removed from the province of Alberta without permission from the government. To gain ownership of a fossil, you must be issued a Disposition Certificate from Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum. Only a few fossil types are currently eligible for disposition: mostly ammonites, petrified wood, leaves and fossil oysters.

This specimen is part of a collection of dinosaur material that was collected by a single individual (Steve Walchina) decades ago prior to the current law. Because it was collected before the law went into effect, the collection was "grandfathered" in. The collection was reviewed by the Royal Tyrrell Museum and a disposition certificate issued for portions of it that were not considered scientifically significant. This moved the fossils into private ownership and allowed them to be removed from the province. The disposition certificate (#000028-29) is on file with the Royal Tyrrell Museum. This makes the small amount of Alberta dinosaur fossils we recently acquired from this collection some of the only legal Alberta dinosaur material on the market.

This is a beautifully preserved, 1.6" wide Hadrosaur ungal (distal phalanx) bone from Alberta, Canada. It comes from one of hadrosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous age (between 65-74 million years old) Horseshoe Canyon Formation. Based on the size of this bone, it is likely from the hand of a Hadrosaur.

Isolated bones such as this are difficult to provide an accurate genus for, therefore we have labeled this as coming from an indeterminate Hadrosaur.

The Horseshoe Canyon Formation yields many different species of Hadrosaur, including Edmontosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, Parksosaurus and Saurolophus. Due to the similarities of these dinosaurs and the unrecorded specifics from the original collector, individual bones, especially of the feet and hands, do not have a guaranteed identification.