Context

• When scientists first unearthed fossils of a horned dinosaur called Centrosaurus in the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park in Canada’s Alberta province in 1989, they spotted a badly malformed leg bone they figured was a healed fracture.

Key Details

• The malformation was a manifestation of osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, making this Centrosaurus, which lived 76 million years ago, the first known example of a dinosaur afflicted by malignant cancer.
• It is a four-legged beaked plant-eating Cretaceous Period dinosaur possessing a long horn above its nose and a bony frill above its neck with two smaller hooked horns.
• contained “a massive gnarly tumor larger than an apple.
• Osteosarcoma generally occurs in rapidly growing bones and as such is found in children and young adults. Presumably dinosaurs were also at risk because of the fact that they grew at enormous rates.