Ianto

The other day myself, Reid, Matt and Joey took a school group out to Mt. Nebo for an afternoon of field work. I decided to get up and stretch my legs. Walking around I noticed a vertebra poking out of the shale. I got out my brush, started brushing away the top layer of shale and uncovered three more vertebrae! I called over my coworkers and we continued to brush the shale away. A few minutes later we’d uncovered five nicely preserved plesiosaur vertebrae. Then came the really hard part, I had to give it a name! After much deliberation I finally settled on Ianto (pronounced: YAN-toe).

Since then we’ve been back to the site many times, and more fossils are still being found. Later on in the field season we’re planning on bringing Ianto back to the museum and it will be examined during the winter season.

-Heather