How do I identify a dinosaur bone?

[Slick5150]

My Father was given a dinosaur bone by a friend of his that worked on dig sites years ago. I remember when I was young it was in a display case with the name of the dinosaur it is from.

A couple weeks ago I was digging through some boxes of his old stuff and found the bone, minus the display case. I'd love to get a new case for it, but I have no idea what kind of dinosaur it would be from.

Here's a pic. As you can see, it's about 23" long. Any ideas how I can get this identified?

 

[biostud]

write a museum?

 

[Newbian]

If you are digging in olds basement for it then it's not a dinosaur bone.

 

[biostud]

45-50 YO Male Human femur

 

[nublikescake]

This is worse than the threads asking ATOT doctors to make diagnoses and prescribe medication on the fly. Try this.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

45-50 YO Male Human femur

It's about the right length for a tall-ish man. Pity it couldn't possibly have come from a human.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

It's a fibula. I'm not a dinosaur expert but if you can give me any idea about where it was found, I can probably get you to the family or maybe genus level.

 

[dennilfloss]

Looks like a hadrosaur fibula (the smaller calf bone) to me.

 

[dennilfloss]

Here's a hadrosaur fibula for comparison.

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/fossil-dinosaur-hadrosaur-fibula-leg-bone-hell

And here's a dromaeosaur (raptor) fibula.

http://www.triassica.com/My%20Pictures from computer/dinosaur_bones/93.jpg

I'm not a dinosaur expert either. My specialty is invertebrates but I used to teach a significant portion of my paleontology classes about Paleozoic-Mesozoic vertebrates at the undergraduate level.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Yeah, a hadrosaur makes sense - it's about the right size and those are relatively common out west. OP, FWIW, that would probably fetch $500-$1,000 from a collector. That's a nice specimen!

 

[jadinolf]

Yeah, a hadrosaur makes sense - it's about the right size and those are relatively common out west. OP, FWIW, that would probably fetch $500-$1,000 from a collector. That's a nice specimen!

Give ya $250

 

[Slick5150]

Thanks for the info so far guys. I wish I could remember more about where it was found and that type of thing, but I unfortunately don't.

Hadrosaur seems pretty cool though!