Dinosaur skeleton found in Durham reconstructed

When UNC paleontologist Joseph Carter put pegs through the anklebones of a prehistoric reptile, making them rotate like a real ankle, he knew had made a breakthrough.

“You and I are the first to see a rauisuchian ankle move in 218 million years,” he told a student working beside him.

On Sunday, Carter and Karin Peyer, a paleontologist and UNC alumna, unveiled a skeletal reconstruction of one of the top terrestrial predators of the Triassic period, which they named Alison (postosuchus alisonae).

The project started nearly two decades ago in 1994 when the fossil was discovered in a rock quarry in Durham. Carter and Peyer found many of the bones from the skeleton still connected the way they would have been during the reptile’s life.

“To find something that precious and that big just out here in our backyard, I think that’s pretty impressive,” Peyer said.

Though much of the skeleton was still intact, Carter and his colleagues had to reconstruct clay models for the bones that were missing. After he and Peyer reconstructed the skull, jaw and shoulder areas, he decided it was a good opportunity to get students involved.

“I was just about ready to launch into this thing, but I thought, ‘Man, this is a lot of work,’” he said.

“I would rather work with students and make it part of my teaching than shift myself totally, temporarily, to doing nothing but invertebrate paleontology.”

Carter began allowing his first-year seminar classes to help reconstruct the vertebrae, rib bones and tailbones of the reptile by molding the pieces out of clay and trying to fit them in the right place. He said approximately 25 percent of the skeleton was student-made.

Michael Narup, an undergraduate student who worked with Carter, said he helped reconstruct the tail of the reptile.

“I was just taking classes last summer to see what kind of major I’d like to transition into, and I took Dr. Carter’s prehistoric life class,” he said.

“We spent one class period working on it, and I asked Dr. Carter if there was any way I could do an independent project working on it. I started on it last summer, and we just finished it. It was pretty cool to see it come into fruition.”

Carter said it meant a lot to him to inspire some of the students who helped him, and he enjoyed seeing kids’ eyes light up when they saw the reptile for the first time.

“This is not just facts — this is about where we came from and what the world was like, so that’s what’s special to me.”

He said there were several distinct characteristics of the fossil, including a certain skeletal structure which revealed it was neither a dinosaur nor a rutiodon — the classic Triassic reptile — but was instead a rauisuchian, or a separate family of reptile predators.

When Carter looked at the hand bones, he found dovetail joints between the thumb and second finger, suggesting that the reptile had a powerful grip that it used to tear through the armor of its prey.

“He had a unique lifestyle — no other rauisuchian is known to do that,” Carter said.

Alison will be on display for the next several weeks on the first floor of Mitchell Hall.

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