Colorado State University Students Put the Pizazz in Paleontology With New Discovery

Like every '90s kid, I'm a big fan of the iconic television show Friends. However, I never got behind the characters' constant hating on Ross for being a paleontologist — that career is freakin' cool.

In case you needed more of a reason (besides the obvious: dinosaurs are dope) to, believe me, there is a group of Colorado State University students who are currently putting the pizazz in paleontology.

According to 9News, the team, led by Joe Sertich, the curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS), is exploring the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah — a unique landmark that Utah's Bryce Canyon Country says contains at least 25 different dinosaur species.

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The station reports that, on their most recent dig, the team discovered bones from a Kosmoceratops, a 76 million-year-old cousin of the Triceratops. Sertich believes that the rare find could enhance research about prehistoric creatures.

"We're going to have one of the best pictures of a really rare, or previously rare, horned dinosaur ever," Sertich told 9News. "All of this feels intangible. You don't realize that we're walking on dinosaurs."

However, these bones are far from Sertich's first dino discovery. In 2017, he and his team uncovered the skull of a Parasaurolophus dinosaur — the first one found in 75 years. In a DMNS press release, Sertich referred to the skull as "spectacular."

DMNS is also currently home to the over 60 million-year-old Pops, a complete Triceratops fossil that paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter discovered in Weld County in 1982.