Lakeland College students and staff recently found a large tooth that could be from a Daspletosaurus, a large carnivorous dinosaur that once roamed southern Alberta and Montana.
It was discovered during a field trip to Dry Island Buffalo Jump Park in central Alberta.
The tooth was found in washed out material north of Drumheller in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, an area of land of soft bentonitic clay and sandstone that dates back about 68 million years.
Chris Olsen, an environmental sciences instructor at the college, said the find is exciting and rare.
“The tooth was found projecting from a rubble slope by Tim Schowolter,” said Olsen.
Schowolter, a sessional wildlife and fisheries conservation instructor at the college and also a naturalist and amateur paleontologist, said it is a large tooth that appears to be too robust for the large carnivorous dinosaur, the Albertosaurus, which are typically found in that area.
Daspletosaurus skeletons are rare and are known to be eight to nine metres long.
The animal is closely related to the much larger Tyrannosaurus rex.
