A team of scientists has published a new report outlining the discovery of the fossil remains of a new genus of tiny hornless deer that lived in the area that is now Badlands National Park nearly 32 million years ago.
In research published last week in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science, scientists said the first and only known skull of Santuccimeryx (Santucci’s ruminant) was discovered at the South Dakota park in 2016 after a visitor site report was submitted by Tiffany Leone, an intern participating in the geoscientists-in-the-parks program.
The research was headed by Mattison Shreero and Ed Welsh of Badlands National Park and included scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and California State Polytechnic University.
“It’s a really neat example with this paper to be able to highlight citizen science, because this is the only skull of this animal ever found,” Shreero said. “And if somebody had walked away with it, or if they just hadn’t reported it and it had eroded away, we would have never known about it.”
