April 28, 2010, was a memorable day for East Coast paleontology and ichnology. This was the official opening of a new permanent display, "Dinosaurs from Our Back Yard" at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Ichnology is the study of traces ancient organic lifeforms left behind in rock. This precedent-setting display features a fossilized new taxon (genus and species) of nodosaur. The dinosaur hatchling was discovered by avocational ichnologist, Ray Stanford, who also discovered a second fossil of a manus (hand) print of a 'junior-size' nodosaur, much larger than that of a hatchling. The display has been declared a permanent exhibit by the Smithsonian and will be seen by over six million visitors per year.

Ray Stanford

Stanford is one of the world's foremost amateur dinosaur trace hunters. He has discovered hundreds of footprints and small trackways of dinosaur, other reptiles, and mammals, in the Washington - Baltimore region, and he has amassed what is the world's largest collection of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints. His work has twice been published in Ichnos, an international scientific journal of animal and plant traces. He has been featured in numerous publications including USA Today, Discovery News, and on The Discovery Channel’s recently aired documentary Prehistoric Washington, D.C..

Stanford and world-class paleontologist Dr. David B. Weishampel, are co-authors of a soon to be published paper in a major paleontological journal, describing and officially naming the new species of nodosaur hatchling the sharp-eyed Stanford discovered in a Maryland stream bed in 1997.

Dr. David B. Weishampel

David Weishampel is one of the world's most respected experts on dinosaurs. He was First Editor of both editions of The Dinosauria (published by the University of California Press, 1990 and 2007). It is the technical book professionals go to for put their finds in context. He is also professor of organismal anatomy at Johns Hopkins Medical University, Baltimore, Maryland, and co-author (with Luther Young) of Dinosaurs of the East Coast (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Dave also was co-author (with Davis E. Fastovsky, of Cambridge University), The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs (a college textbook published by Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Along with the fossil of the infant nodosaur, Stanford has contributed a compressionally preserved nodosaur left, front footprint that will also be on permanent display at the Smithsonian. Stanford explains the scientific importance of these rare, first-ever finds on the east coast of North America:

"The actual nodosaur fossil contains some surprising details considering the almost unique type of preservation (only as natural molds and natural casts of bones) with all bones, per se, having long ago been dissolved by water-carried ground acids. That extraordinary preservation is one thing which makes this fossil so important, instructing us, as it does, about unusual ways in which vertebrates may become fossilized, and potentially alerting paleontologists to fossil vertebrates they might potentially overlook or not examine with thoroughness.”

Stanford has also discovered Maryland's first, and to date only, 'native' dinosaurian ichnospecies, in a fossil of both the front and back footprints of a Hypsilophodon:

“I have collected several other specimens of Hypsiloichnus marylandicus, including that made by a very sub-adult individual. Two of these finds feature a smaller footprint at the top, which is a manus ('hand') impression, and the larger 'four-on-the-floor' was made by the pes (back foot) of each trackmaker.

Does this Smithsonian permanent display mean that Stanford will now stop his paleontological research? Certainly not. “I have several very important finds waiting to be written-up, that are far more scientifically important than the discovery of the new genus of nodosaur! You will be hearing about those in due time."

Seek and You Shall Find

Armed with his uncanny, finely tuned observational skills, Stanford, 71, is highly motivated to continue his ground breaking field explorations of Maryland's ancient creek beds and further our understanding of East Coast paleontology:

"I intend to 'keep on tracking', just as both my own sense of seeking discovery and my best friends have advised me, across these nearly sixteen years of walking in the fossil footprints of those fascinating vertebrates who long preceded us."

Rarely do avocational scientists attract the notice of leading experts in the field and Stanford feels a well-deserved sense of academic acknowledgment, “I'm very thankful to Dr. David Weishampel for his very much appreciated encouragement, essential advice, and invaluable help with the scientific paper on new nodosaur. The day he invited me to join him in doing a paper on the nodosaur was one of the happiest days of my life." The official announcement of Sanford’s naming of this new species will take place soon.

"I am also greatly indebted to the Smithsonian's NMNH Curator of Dinosaurs, Dr. Matthew Carrano for his encouragement and nearly miraculous patience with me in planning this display, as I'm far from the easiest person in the world with whom to work. So, I thank him. In my humble assessment, he has the right attributes for his very demanding job, four important ones of which are intelligence, tactfulness, patience, and being a man of his word. In keeping up the good work, I believe that our posterity shall remember him as one who, by touching the minds and lives of children, created a richer and more vibrant institution."