Laramie, WY – University of Wyoming Geological Museum

 I loved my road trip to the University of Wyoming. They have a really cute little museum there that, despite its small size, houses some amazing fossils. My favorite was this amazing full skeleton hanging on a wall at the far-end of the museum. There are a few remarkable things about this. First of all, this Stegosaurus was a young adult at the time of its death. Most displays you see are either fully grown adults that presumably died of old age or young babies that didn’t make it past their first stage of life. This specimen also shows that backplates were not part of Stegosaurus’ spine the way that many scientists has previously believed. Rather, they were bony protrusions like you can find on the skin of modern-day crocodiles. (Called “osteoderms”)
Lastly, you can clearly see the “gular armor” of the Stegosaurus here, which was a sheet of protective, bony skin that would shield the neck from small biting creatures that could attack that otherwise vulnerable spot on its body. This example of gular armor has dispersed over time, but it’s still fascinating to see. A lot of the Stegosaurus displays on this list don’t feature the gular armor as all, as it tends to break apart and drift away from the main skeleton over time, but it can be seen in its intact form on the Denver skeleton on this website.