Name:
Location:
Date of Fossil Sediments:
Dinosaurs Found:
About Ghost Ranch:
It's not as popular (or as pronounceable) as other carnivorous dinosaurs like T. Rex or Velociraptor, but Coelophysis has an even more prominent place in paleontological history. This is one of the earliest theropods to be identified and named (in the late 19th century, by the famous paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope), and over 50 years later, it was the subject of one of the most spectacular fossil finds in history.
In 1947, the paleontologist Edwin Colbert stumbled upon a mass Coelophysis graveyard in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico--thousands of specimens, in various states of articulation, all tangled together in a heap. Clearly, a flash flood about 215 million years ago (in the late Triassic period) had caught and carried away a surprised herd of Coelophysis. The flood itself isn't all that unusual--natural disasters happen all the time, to dinosaurs and humans alike. Rather, the striking thing about this discovery is the evidence that Coelophysis roamed western North America in large herds, a behavior usually associated with herbivorous dinosaurs.
It's important to realize that Ghost Ranch isn't the only place where Coelophysis skeletons have been found--these dinosaurs must have been particularly numerous in the late Triassic, since they've also been dug up in Arizona and Utah.
