Triceratops Dug Up During Colorado Construction

A triceratops skull and skeleton were found Friday in Thornton, Colorado, at the construction site of a new public safety building.

Two other triceratops skulls were found in the area along the Front Range, Denver Museum of Nature and Science Curator of Dinosaurs Joe Sertich said in a statement, The Denver Post reported.

“My heart was racing,” he said. “As soon as (we) uncovered it and realized this was a horn of a triceratops and not just another leg bone or part of a hip, it made the site really exciting,” Sertich said, The Denver Post reported.

Construction workers discovered the fossil when they were breaking ground for the Fire and Police Substation. Workers were moving ground with a skid-steer loader when they were stopped by an object, and one of the workers thought it could be a fossil.

“We’re really lucky in this case that it was recognized as fossils and we got the call and were out here and able to salvage the site,” Sertich said, adding that many times the fossils are plowed up and not recognized, The Denver Post reported.

Sertich said the find was probably about 66 million years old, unlike most of the fossils found in the area, which are from the Ice Age and are about 10 to 12 million years old, according to The Washington Post.

Crews have stopped work so the fossils can be excavated and so that scientists can look for other bones. Sertich hopes that the fossil will be housed at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science once it is removed from the site.

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