Tankaceratops sacrisonorum

Talk about wild life!  This herbivore lived right over the hill northwest of the Cave Hills buttes in my header at the moment; albeit his family probably ate the lush jungle plants 65.5 million years ago.  Today they have all gone to oil except for the fossil remains of  more dinosaurs than one can shake a stick at...while threatening the rattlesnakes of today.  How amazing and how good to have cousins that doggedly dig and come up with new bones with no names..until now!

A few years ago another dinosaur was named "Willo" for the rancher's wife on whose land it was found.  Now my own maiden name shares a little of that glory.

 I first read about it in my home town newspaper, Nation's Center News.  Google directed me to a few more sites worth exploring.

" This skull and its accompanying partial skeleton were discovered and collected nearly a decade ago by Stan and Steve Sacrison, respectively of Buffalo and Bison, South Dakota, in the Hell Creek Formation of Harding County. These twin brothers have distinguished themselves over the years in their paleontological discoveries that include three Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. One of these, "STAN," is the second most complete T. rex skeleton ever discovered.

Implications of this discovery point to concerns held by scientists regarding the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, which crosses Montana and South Dakota near other important paleontological sites."

The genus Tatankaceratops is derived from "Tatanka," the Lakota name for the American Bison (Bison bison), in reference to a similarity in size between the two animals. The name also intends to honor the Lakota Sioux Tribe who inhabited the region. The Latin "ceratops," means "horn face," and is commonly included in the names of creatures in this category. The species name, sacrisonorum, is a tip of the hat to Stan and Steve Sacrison. The new specimen, # BHI6226, is reposited at Black Hills Institute, Hill City, South Dakota."

Wildlife Update

Sometimes the wild life is my own.  I have spent way too much time with the Microsoft help folks.  Some of my problems were solved.  Every time I tried to work on my biography of Liz, MS Word would crash and give me a little note that I am working on an illlegal copy of the software.  Having purchased Windows 7 and MS Office Home and Student, I knew it was not illegal.

The crashing has been resolved and the note about the illegal software has blessedly gone away.  Along with all of that I have lost my Office Outlook email program, every contact, and all of my saved files.  I will not have a crash of my own over any of it.  Maybe staying off of email for a while will not be all that bad.  Yes, I can get my email as I access Cox Webmail with my old address.

Our babies, the little bunnies in the flower pot and the wood ducklings are all out of their nests.  Mother wood duck flew over us last night so she must have the three ducklings hidden away somewhere nearby.  All of them are out of my control and it is a bit of a relief to not have to protect the cotton tails from our frequent downpours.  Mother Wood Duck hatched out three little ducklings in the hole in our front yard tree again.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is about done with the insulation on the sauna.  We both look at all the wonderful cedar and will be glad when it is on the walls so we can get the full aroma of it.  My book nears completion.
                              Live is Good.