His illustrations of newly discovered dinosaurs have been featured many times in

scientific journals such as Science, Nature and Discover and in general-interest magazines

like Time.

Now William L. Parsons, of Buffalo, has topped himself — and everybody in his field

— with the Canadian Journal of Earth Science's publication of his rendering of the head

of a previously unknown species that he and his wife, Kristen M., found in a Montana field.

Since the broad, short horns on the back of the skull resembled buffalo horns, they named

it tatankacephalus cooneyorum. The first word combines tatanka, which means buffalo in the

Sioux language, with cephalus — Greek for head.

Connecting something discovered in Big Sky country with their hometown was a stretch, Bill

Parsons admitted before adding tongue-in-cheek, "Any further allusions to the city Buffalo are

completely intentional."

The color illustration of the rather docile-looking creature accompanies a paper the couple

wrote for the Canadian journal about the process of discovery and verification, which started

in 1997, when the Parsonses came across the skull fragments on a barren hillside.

The Buffalo Museum of Science research associates were exploring land owned by a farmer

they had befriended when they literally stumbled across the 112 million-year-old fossil, which

lay completely out in the open. It had probably been exposed by erosion after millions of

years beneath the surface, Parsons said.

When they returned to the farmhouse, the owner jokingly asked: "Did you find a ton of

dinosaurs?"

"We have a dinosaur skull we found in your backyard if you want to see it," Bill Parsons

answered, reaching for his knapsack.

At first the paleontologist couple thought they had run across a common type of ankylosaur

— a herbivore some call "the biological version of an army tank." Ankylosaurs were

protected by platelike armor with two sets of sharp spikes on either side of the head and a

skull so thick that even a bloodthirsty raptor couldn't dent it.

But because the skull was 90 percent complete and, after layers of rock were scraped away, revealed features never before seen in an ankylosaur, the Parsonses eventually proved they had found a new species. Subsequent exploration of the same site turned up a shoulder blade and vertebra from what was likely the same animal, which Bill Parsons estimates was 15 to 20 feet

long.

"This is a really important find that gives us a clearer view of the evolution of armored

dinosaurs," said Lawrence Witner, an Ohio University paleontology professor.

Using gouache, an opaque watercolor with dense pigment, Bill Parsons painted an

illustration of tatankacephalus to conform with Museum of the Rockies paleontologist John R. Horner's theory that the animal had an outer sheathing similar to a turtle shell or bird beak.

Parsons' version also has more complex and colorful patterns than seen in earlier

ankylosaur portraits, which gave them a dull appearance.

Bill Parsons, who teaches art at the Gow School in South Wales when he isn't doing

scientific illustrations for the Museum of Science, met Kristen at the museum's Hiscock Dig in Genesee County, one of North America's richest Ice Age sites.

They married there in 1994, two years before starting their annual trips to Montana. They are the parents of 7-month-old twins Charlotte and Samantha, who have already accompanied them

on two research expeditions.

Witner predicted "a series of important discoveries" by team Parsons in the future.

tbuckham@buffnews.com