The clay-encased fossil of a young dinosaur is being examined at a Cedar Rapids hospital this week. The juvenile tyrannosaurus rex was found in South Dakota two years ago — the only juvenile T-Rex found in the U-S. Kim Hollrah, a native of the Benton County town of Atkins, is a paleontologist and was part of the team that found “Tinker.” Hollrah says Tinker is being cat-scanned at St. Luke’s Hospital as the bones are still partly sunken into hard clay. The clay also contains leaves, ferns and other relics from the ancient age. He says St. Luke’s staff members are donating their time and the scanning equipment for the research effort.The specimen of the 66-million year old T-Rex is about 23-feet long and weighs 15-hundred pounds.He says it appears the creature tumbled into a ravine as its bones are folded over in a heap. It also appears at least one other dinosaur took a few bites out of Tinker. Research is underway on the dinosaur at a lab in Cedar Rapids.
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