Top Quality Edmontosaurus Vertebrae - 11.5" Tall

This is a very well preserved dorsal vertebrae of a type of Hadrosaur, Edmontosaurus annectens. It is large at 11 1/2 inches tall and the processes are intact. As can be expected on delicate bone like this there have been some repaired cracks. The only restoration is a missing fragment in one of the cracks on a process. The outer "skin" of the bone is in great shape.

This specimen was found at a private ranch in Butte County, South Dakota earlier this summer. It comes from a quarry known as the "Tooth Draw Quarry" that has produced many high quality dinosaur teeth over the past several decades. In the Late Cretaceous some 65 million years ago, this quarry was located in a sub-tropical floodplain that would have been similar to modern day coastal Louisiana. It consists of 2 meters of alternating sandstone and gravel, representing a river channel lag deposit. It contains many isolated dinosaur teeth including T-Rex, Nanotyrannus, Raptors and Triceratops, but teeth of this high quality are rare finds.