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New dinosaur species named after Ghostbusters monster…

May 10th, 2017 by Marc Comments

There is no Dana, only Zuul…

And now there treacly is a Zuul! How cool is that?

“Scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum have recently discovered the fossil of a 75-million-year-old species of armoured dinosaur, or ankylosaur, which was unusually well-preserved — and oddly familiar to movie buffs.

“Meet Zuul crurivastator — destroyer of shins — whose discovery is being discussed in the Royal Society Open Science journal. 

“The name was inspired by the Ghostbusters villain Zuul, says Victoria Arbour, paleontologist and postdoctoral fellow at the ROM and University of Toronto.

“Me and my co-author David Evans were batting around ideas for what to name it, and I just half-jokingly said, ‘It looks like Zuul from Ghostbusters,'” she said. “Once we put that out there we couldn’t not name it that.

“Paleontologist Victoria Arbour noticed a resemblance between the skull of the dinosaur and Ghostbuster villain Zuul, and the name stuck.”

As for the creature it self, well: “The plant-eating species has a short, rounded snout and prominent horns behind the eyes. A large knob of bone at the end of its stiffened tail could have been used to strike predators in the legs (hence the name destroyer of shins) or for battling others for territory or mates, the scientists said. “

 

Wait, so Zuul was a herbivore? That’s a little disappointing… but we’re still loving the name and the unashamed neediness of the scientists involved.

The hellhound cometh…

Source: cbcnews

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….