Dinosaur Tail Uncovered by Backhoe in Canada

Workers in Canada uncovered a dinosaur tail fossil this week when a backhoe digging the path for an oil pipeline struck the specimen.

The Tourmaline Oil Corp. immediately paused construction to call in an expert who, upon arriving, was shocked at the find.

"As we walked around it, we saw this whole part of a tail of a dinosaur," paleontologist Matthew Vavrek told CNN. "To see something like that is pretty incredible."

Most of the time, fossils are discovered in a less-than-perfect state, often appearing crushed and dispersed over an area. Such would have been the case in this instance had the backhoe kept going. According to CNN, initial efforts to pick it up were less than successful, with chunks falling to pieces before the driver noticed and stopped.

"You handle it carefully, or it's just going to shatter," Vavrek said, noting that the last time he saw something so intact "was in a museum."

"I've never found something like this before."

Now it's a race against time to carefully but quickly remove the fossil and others that may accompany it before the Canadian winter sets in, freezing the ground.

"We don't know for sure that the rest of the animal is there," Vavrek said. "Sometimes, all you get is what you see."

Based on the tail, Vavrek estimates the dinosaur was mid-size, and while it can take years to identify the fossil, a likely candidate, according to the Edmonton Journal, is that of a hadrosaur.

A plant-eating dinosaur with a bill like a duck, hadrosaurs were common in the Upper Cretaceous of Europe, Asia and North America.

According to the Journal, the fossil will be taken to either the Tyrrell Museum or the University of Alberta upon its removal.