09/18/2026
From our Dig Supervisor, Joshua Haley:
This piece has been an exciting adventure. Since we excavated her in 2023, we have been slowly working to reassemble and clean the bones of Ruth, our Edmontosaurus. Over the past two summers, I have spent a great deal of time on her lower right mandible, working to prepare it for display. Undoubtedly, it was tedious work cleaning between each of the many teeth with a microjack, being careful not to damage the enamel while at the same time removing the sediment.
The jaw of a dinosaur is filled with all sorts of delicate turns and cavities where blood vessels and nerves run through the bone, supporting a crucial life function of the animal–eating. Aside from the teeth, one of my favorite details on this bone is the dental foramina, a uniform line of holes for blood vessels marching beneath the teeth, which feed nutrients into the tooth growing mechanism of the beast. The jaw of the Edmontosaurus supports a huge battery of teeth, stacked on top of one another and sometimes reaching the astounding count of 300 teeth in a single mandible!
Enjoy looking at before and after pictures of Ruth's jaw and seeing the transformation these fossils go through before they are ready for display, as well as seeing some of the intriguing details of the bone. It was truly a blast to sink my teeth into studying this work of art as I prepped it and watched it unfold into an amazing testament of our Creator's design. The intricate detail, the muscular power in such a jaw, and the way everything is so wonderfully engineered left me in awe of the One who created me.
