Newly Discovered Dinosaur Named After Monster From 'Ghostbusters'

The last time a newly discovered species of club-tailed dinosaur wandered the Earth was 75 million years ago. But when researchers at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum saw the fossil, their minds went to 1980s science fiction. As the Los Angeles Times reports, Zuul crurivastator is named after the ferocious demigod from Ghostbusters (1984).

Z. crurivastator shares a few characteristics with the movie villain, as the researchers lay out in their new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. It has four legs, a snub nose, and horns that flare from its crown and face. The second half of its name means "destroyer of shins," a nod to the bony weapon it carried on the end of its tail. Z. crurivastator has this characteristic in common with the rest of the Ankylosaurus genus.

Unlike Zuul, this dinosaur didn’t hang out inside refrigerators and on top of skyscrapers. The 5500-pound herbivore spent its days grazing the landscape and clubbing predators in what is today the badlands of northern Montana. A fossil-hunting company came across its remains while excavating another dinosaur in 2014. After hitting its tail with a bulldozer, they dug further and discovered an intact skull. The specimen is the most complete North American Ankylosaurus fossil on record.

After the bones were turned over to the Royal Ontario Museum, scientists made another exciting discovery: Portions of the soft tissue had been preserved for millions of years, possibly due to the sediment that surrounded it. Paleontologists plan to test the scales and sheath around its spiky armor for molecular traces of keratin. The analysis could lead to revelations about the color and makeup of dinosaur skin.