What is a Galeamopus? 50-foot-long skeleton on display 18 years after discovery

A rare Galeamopus dinosaur skeleton is on display at a Cincinnati brewery for a special event called Curate My Community initiative. The exhibit is scheduled to debut on May 15. It took scientists 18 years to uncover, clean and study the specimen. The rare, 50-foot-long fossil is one of the three ever found.

The incredible discovery was made in 2000, when a rancher in Montana found dinosaur bones on his property. The researchers associated with the Cincinnati Museum Center were alerted and it took four years to excavate the skeleton.

In an interview with Cincinnati radio station WVXU, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Glenn Storrs said: "It's an 85 percent-complete skeleton, which is tremendous for finding a dinosaur...it was an isolated carcass in the Jurassic washed up onto a sandbar, so we found it in isolation and most of the animal was there, most of it was articulated, so there's a lot of important anatomical information we can glean from this fossil."

What is a  Galeamopus?

Galeamopus is a genus of herbivorous diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, which have massive bodies, a very long neck, long tail and a relatively small head. The creature also had four thick, pillar-like legs and roamed the Earth during the Jurassic period.

Scientists are studying the fossilised remains found in Montana to determine the creature's age and gender.

"I was once told that once you collect one sauropod, you never want to collect another, and I agree...But it's really a thrill to have seen it in the ground, slowly emerging bit by bit, and then come to this point where it's available for everyone to see and enjoy," said Storrs.

After the display at the brewery, the specimen will be moved into a new dinosaur exhibit in the Natural History and Science Museum.