Dinosaurs

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"Officials with the Dinosaur Hunting License," November 20, 1958. Visitors from the Democratic party are shown Vernal's famous Dinosaur Hunting License. Courtesy of the Uintah County (UT) Library via Mountain West Digital Library.

Dinosaurs freely roamed the Mountain West during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Fossils of species such as Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus can be viewed throughout the region. The first scientific collection of local fossils began in the mid-nineteenth century. Earl Douglass discovered and excavated fossils in what is now Dinosaur National Monument, in Jensen, Utah, starting in 1909. While past fossil hunting practices were damaging to the landscape, as people rushed to an area to dig, improved practices leave the fossil exposed and intact, and can be experienced at contemporary dinosaur parks and monuments.

Other discoveries in the northern Mountain West include Cretaceous fossil remains of popular dinosaur species such as Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Hadrosaurs, Tyrannosaurus, and Pachycephalosaur. Many of these local finds can be found at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, including the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex collection in the world.