Dinosaur Hunters: Tales of a Summer in the Badlands

Do you dream about heading out into strange lands to discover unknown treasure? If movies like Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park made you feel like becoming an explorer, then you might wonder about what a day in the life out in the field really looks like.

Forget the whip and set aside those stories about dinosaurs coming back to life. We decided to learn about what really happens on a scientific expedition by talking with students from Hans Larsson’s paleontology lab! Larsson is a paleontology professor at McGill University, a researcher, and a collaborator on the T. rex: The Ultimate Predator exhibition. Turns out the adventures of these students are just as exciting as any movie, so hang on to your hats and read on!

Paleontologists Make Discoveries… and Bury Them?

Imagine spending days on end under a hot sun in a desert landscape that makes you feel like you’re on a different planet. As you shovel away, and brush off yet another layer of dirt, you’re quietly betting on unearthing some 75-million-year-old treasure. Then again, you might find nothing at all. That’s what field work is like for paleontologists in the Badlands of Alberta: one part hope, one part patience, and a lot of grueling work.  

By the end of this year’s expedition, the perseverance of Larsson’s team had paid off. They made an incredible discovery: the skeleton of a juvenile Gorgosaurus, a dinosaur relative of the T. rex. Finding specimens like this from young dinosaurs is extremely rare because their bones are so small and delicate, so they don’t usually survive millions of years waiting under the dirt.

That’s why this discovery by Larsson’s team was such a real find. It happened so late in the season, though, that they had to make a choice. After unearthing a few ribs and parts of the skull, they decided to shovel the earth back on top and cover up the dig site. This may sound surprising, but this was their best move if they wanted to protect their discovery until the next dig season. Even if Larsson’s team’s discovery was made on lands protected by law, they don’t want to risk losing it to fossil thieves. That’s just how you have to play the game when you hunt for treasure today!

The Adventure is in the Journey, Not the Destination

Making a paleontological discovery doesn’t always mean finding a full skeleton. Sometimes, the real adventure lies in the work. Biology student Mac Devereux knows something about that. He was so excited when he unearthed what he thought was a foot bone from a Tyrannosaurus, but the real adventure was bringing it back to camp. The protective cast just wouldn’t dry, so Mac had to transport his precious “baby” carefully. Weighing several kilos, the specimen finally made its way to the camp thanks to Mac cradling it as he slid along the canyon… on his behind.

What did Mac discover when he got back to camp? The bone was actually the scapula of a run-of-the-mill ceratopsian, a horned dinosaur species. The bone was too average, and too damaged, to be worth keeping. After that long journey across the canyon, the bone ended up in the compost bin! But Mac wasn’t disappointed. His feat was “what makes those really good discoveries even more exciting,” he said.

Alexandre Demers-Potvin, a postdoctoral researcher that has been seven years to this field trip, told us about the time in 2023 when he and the team unearthed a nearly complete skull of a ceratopsian, another horned dinosaur. This rare find may in fact mark the discovery of a new species, in a region where paleontologists have been digging for over a century! The skull was embedded in a rock, so it took four people to carry it back to camp on a stretcher over several kilometres of steep hills under blazing heat, with temperatures at times getting up to 35°C! André Mueller, a master’s student at Larsson’s lab, now leads the work in describing this remarkable specimen.

Fieldwork in paleontology also requires an immense amount of patience. Evolutionary biology student Chloe Rollins has spent hours carefully scraping away at traces of dinosaurs with nothing more than a spoon and a little knife, making sure nothing gets damaged. All this leads to wonderful moments when the last of the dust is swept away to reveal discoveries, like tracks from ancient animals. The discovery is like a snapshot of a moment frozen in time. 

Bimbus: The Superstar Turtle 

Some discoveries can transform a researcher’s career. Soon-to-be doctoral student Gabrielle Bonin got a chance to work on Bimbus, the most complete turtle ever discovered in Canada, or possibly even in North America! Most turtle fossils are found without their heads or neck, but not Bimbus! Bimbus was found whole, as if it had just taken a very, very long nap. This exceptional fossil is what inspired Gabrielle’s PhD work, studying turtles in their North American ecosystem at the end of the Cretaceous.

Life at the Field Camp: Mud, Mosquitoes, and Aurora Borealis 

The paleontology life is more than just hunting fossils — it’s an adventure for body and soul, that also includes intense physical work, crushing heat, and ravenous mosquitoes. And when it rains, the mudstone turns into a sticky and slippery clay, like molasses. Walking in it is a test of balance and crawling in it on all fours happens more often than you’d think.

Yet, this is the kind of hardship that promotes incredible camaraderie. Larsson’s team is a cool mix of biology students, law students, music students, and commerce students. In the evening, around the campfire, conversations jump from Baroque music to science and sometimes lead to wicked games Ultimate Frisbee! And at night fall, the skies put on a breathtaking show, filled with stars with occasional appearances from the aurora borealis.

Your Adventure Awaits at the Science Centre! 

Whether it ends up in a museum or in the compost bin, every bone tells a story. Stories filled with emotion, perseverance, and teamwork, stories that remind us how science is a profoundly human adventure. To read about more stories like this, follow the Larsson lab on social media: @Dino.logue 

Now it’s your turn to take part in the adventure! Come visit the Montréal Science Centre and explore the work of all these experts. Visit our exhibition T. rex: The Ultimate Predator where you can check out amazing fossils on loan from our generous exhibition collaborators, Hans Larsson and the Redpath Museum.

Make it a double dino experience and sink your teeth into a combo offer! See the IMAX® film T.REX 3D and embark on a second paleontology adventure on the same day in the Badlands of Hell Creek.

Who knows? Maybe fossil hunting is your calling!