A new hadrosaurid ornithopod from the Upper Cretaceous of North Dakota
Santana Lopez, Samuel Evans - University of Chicago

Cretaceous Research
Volume 34, March 2012

ABSTRACT

Hadrosaurids are primarily herbivorous ornithopod dinosaurs of the Cretaceous. Here we report a new member of the ornithopoda clade Hadrosauridae from the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota, based on a single, complete skeleton. The discovery of this animal, here named Brittosaurus agilis gen. et sp. nov., adds to the known diversity of hadrosaurids in North America. B. agilis can be identified by a unique configuration of lumbar vertebrae and pelvic girdle. Several additional features contribute to a combination of character states that serves to further distinguish B. agilis from other taxa. Comparisons with other hadrosaurids suggest that Brittosaurus was a uniquely agile and flexible ornithopod.

.x.

Santana Lopez nervously picked at the seam of her coffee cup. This symposium on body-size evolution and ecology was fascinating, it truly was, but she honestly didn't come to NAPC this year for anything other than one reason: to see Brittany S. Pierce, and the speaker, who Santana was sure was a very nice person, wasn't Brittany S. Pierce, nor was anyone else currently present in the room.

"If you keep doing that, it's going to leak," Sam whispered from his seat to her left.

She ignored him and tried to concentrate on the powerpoint slide on the screen, ominously titled "General Laws in Body Size". Brittany S. Pierce was somewhere in this convention center. If there were n attendees at this conference, and y number of sessions, what were the chances that they'd attend the same session given z, the average number of attendees in each session?

The door to the room opened and closed. Looks like someone was trying to sneak in late. Santana turned, expecting to see some frazzled grad student, but her eyes widened as her brain associated "beautiful" and "blonde" and "good God you're hot" with the sight of one Brittany S. Pierce, and the revelation coincided exactly with the feeling of something hot and liquid landing in her lap.

"Shit!" Santana grabbed every napkin within arm's reach and dabbed at the coffee on her slacks, ignoring the coughs and constipated looks from the Ivy League crowd at the table to the right.

"Told ya."

"Shut it, Trouty," she hissed as she stuffed the napkins into the leaking paper cup. "Did you see that? Brittany Pierce just came in."

"Oh? Is that who that was? I had no idea. Considering that you convinced me to let you name our fucking dinosaur after her."

Santana rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be sarcastic."

"Look, Santana. You've been pining over this girl for years now. Isn't it time to make a move?"

"Impossible. I have no game."

"We're all scientists here. None of us have any game."

Sam had a point. But when the speaker was finished and everyone was packing their laptops up to leave, Santana made a beeline for the door instead of stopping to talk with, or even look at, the woman she'd been dreaming about for years.

.x.

Three o'clock. Santana had made it almost the entire day without having to talk to Brittany Pierce, but damn if Brittany wasn't popping up everywhere: in sessions, in the hallways, at the poster display, in the line for coffee. Santana even checked for feet under the stalls just to make sure she was alone in the bathroom.

She berated herself as she washed her hands. "You're such a fucking chicken." She pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and scrubbed at her hands viciously. "Chicken." She looked at herself in the mirror. "Talk to her. Just say hi," and for a shining moment she felt confident enough to go through with it. But then her usual chorus of insecurities piped up, joined by the extra voice of doubt that always chimed in when she thought of Brittany: She's probably some combination of straight and taken. Isn't she engaged to that one guy? 'Brittosaurus' is probably the stupidest thing she's ever heard.

Santana tossed the paper towel into the trash.

.x.

Santana forgot she was speaking. No, she knew she was speaking but she'd neglected to make the connection that speaking meant her name was printed in the conference program, and when the entire UC Berkeley contingent — including one Brittany S. Pierce — showed up five minutes before she was scheduled to give her presentation, Santana knew she was trapped.

Thank God she'd been asked to present on the Hell Creek Formation itself and not on what she'd found there. It saved her from having to say "Brittosaurus" while its namesake sat less than twenty feet away. And thank God she'd given this presentation about a billion times before, because if she'd needed to think to present it she would have collapsed into a nervous wreck. The autopilot did just fine, thank you.

Once she was finished, however, the autopilot disengaged and she was back to her normal, nervous, has-no-game self. She packed up her laptop and tried to ignore the fact that everyone was leaving but Brittany Pierce hadn't moved a muscle, that Brittany Pierce was watching her every move like she was a new specimen being lifted from the earth.

As soon as they were alone in the room, Brittany stood up and walked closer, lean and graceful and powerful. "I really enjoyed your talk, Dr. Lopez. Hell Creek has a remarkable amount of paleobiological diversity."

"It's San—Santana." Great, now she was stuttering. Is that what prey did, on the African plains, when it realized it was being stalked by a cheetah? She stood frozen in place and twisted at her notes in her hands.

Brittany smiled. "All right, Santana. But why didn't you talk about your discovery?"

She knew exactly where this conversation was going. "It wasn't applicable to the topic at hand," she said guardedly.

"Okay, but I don't think anyone would have minded if you mentioned one of the most important discoveries made in North America in the past ten years." Brittany kept moving closer.

Santana couldn't help but peek at Brittany's hands. Fingernails short and neat. No rings. She blinked and forced herself to look up again. "I'm... not really that kind of person. The t—talk-myself-up kind."

"Why not? I would have loved to hear you talk yourself up — because unlike most people you can actually back it up."

A compliment. Brittany had just given her a compliment. She looked down at the shredded remnants of her notes and said nothing.

Brittany pressed on. "But I'm curious. Why'd you name it 'Brittosaurus'?"

"I..." This was it. She'd finally have to explain to Brittany Pierce why she'd named a dinosaur after her. But how could she explain I think your work is brilliant, or You're the hottest woman I've ever seen or I've been crushing on you ever since I saw you present at that conference in Geneva two years ago. "I named it after someone important to me."

"Someone in your past?" Brittany was so close now that Santana could see the wet-denim blue of her eyes. "Or in your future?"

Santana looked down, suddenly terrified. Chicken. Talk to her. Just say hi. Two years to this moment. "Now," she whispered. "Right now."

Brittany grinned. "Have dinner with me tonight?"

God, yes. Absolutely. "I'd love to."