Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TAKE A RIDE ON THE DINOSAUR TRAIL
Montana may be the only state with its own dinosaur trail. There are 13 stops on this
unique trail, which has its own map and website. Joining Malta's Phillips County
Museum and the Judith River Dinosaur Field Station where you can watch Murphy
and his cronies prepare dinosaur fossils, the trail includes stops in the Museum of
the Rockies, a Smithsonian affiliate that's headed by paleontologist Jack Horner, a
consultant on
Jurassic Park;
and the Fort Peck Field Station of Paleontology, which
is run by the University of Montana and serves as a state fossil repository.
One of the most exciting examples took place in 2000, when a team member on the last
day of a five-day dig happened to look down and notice the exposed midsection of a
Bra-
chylophosaurus
tail. Finding a new dinosaur specimen would have been thrilling enough, but
this one had 90 percent of its skin still intact, giving paleontologists all sorts of new inform-
ation about this 35-foot-long duckbilled herbivore's diet, range of movement, and methods
of locomotion. Keep in mind that paleontologists normally piece together entire life histories
from something as minuscule as a 2-inch tooth. Famous dinosaur researcher Robert Bakker
reportedly fell to his knees when he first saw the find, tears in his eyes. “It was,” he said,
“like seeing the 'Pietà.'”
The new two-ton find was named Leonardo after a piece of graffiti scrawled onto a
nearby rock: “Leonard Webb loves Geneva Jordan 1916.”
Newsweek
ran a cover story and
the body of knowledge exploded, not just for the Judith River scientists but for every pa-
leontologist, evolutionary biologist, and, for that matter, layperson interested in prehistoric
creatures.
“Paleontology is not an exact science,” Murphy observes. “All we have are bones, and
from there we develop theories about what the animals looked like, how they moved, and
what they ate. A specimen like Leonardo will take a lot of guesswork out and really tell us if
Steven Spielberg's getting it right.”
The fee for Judith River's five-day expeditions vary from $895 (for the Judith River
Badlands Expedition, which doesn't include lodging or food) to $1,495 (for the Little Snowy
Mountains Dinosaur Project, which does include food). Your accommodations are the tent
you're required to bring. Expeditions are offered in July and August to individuals 14 years
and older, and the class sizes range between 12 and 20 diggers.
Murphy likes to say he's not running a “paleo dude ranch” and that the work on his ex-
peditions is tiring and hot, but anyone who has ever taken his expeditions (including a group
of regulars who call themselves the “paleochicks”) claim they're loads of fun, including late
night sing-alongs of such campfire classics as “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.”
