Science: Bone Bonanza

He is the Dick Tracy of the Mesozoic Age. No matter how softly dinosaurs trod millions of years ago, Dr. Edwin H. Colbert, curator of fossil reptiles of Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History and professor of paleontology at Columbia University, tracks them down and digs out their bones from under the rock layers that hide them. But one dinosaur had always eluded him: the coelophysis, diminutive (3 ft. high, 6 ft. long) but impressive granddaddy of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brontosaurus and all the other Mesozoic monsters.

One day last fortnight Dr. Colbert and his assistant George Whitaker were exploring Arroyo Yeso, a...

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