LONDON: As momentous days go, it couldn’t have got much better for palaeontologist Caleb M Brown. For in revealing the discovery of a new dinosaur, he also found himself a wife.
In a paper published in the journal Current Biology, the Canadian academic described a strange-looking creature with a bizarre “frilly crown” skull, causing a wave of excitement among fossil hunters the world over.
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But, unnoticed by many, was a line in the acknowledgements section at the end of the article that, happily, sent one heart in particular a-flutter.
“C.M.B. would specifically like to highlight the ongoing and unwavering support of Lorna O’Brien. Lorna, will you marry me?” he wrote in the paper. The answer from Dr O’Brien, who like Dr Brown works as a palaeontologist at Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, was yes.
However Dr Brown was anxious to avoid his personal news overshadowing the unveiling of the new dinosaur, a Triceratops-like animal formally named Regaliceratops peterhewsi but known as “Hellboy” because of its unusual appearance. “We don’t want that part [their engagement] to eclipse the new species,” Dr Brown told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
