After 66 Million Years, Creature Wins State Dinosaur Honor

California has a new mascot. Saturday Governor Brown signed legislation aiming a 35 foot long prehistoric reptile the state dinosaur. The skeleton was discovered 80 years ago in central California. It's estimated to have roamed the state 66 million years ago. The late creature would have fit in well today. It was Tatarian, loved the cost and could have taken a perfect selfie. Earlier this year I spoke with the curator at the natural history Museum about this. I started by asking him how to pronounce the name. Augustynolophus morrisi . What does it mean? The species name is Morris I which refers to Bill Morris who was a paleontologist who was an early worker on this dinosaur and some others. The genus is named after a family in Los Angeles who has donated to the museum. Part of the name refers to a group of dinosaurs in this species. There has been talk about a nickname. Any suggestions? No I don't have any. I'm sure the kids will come up with a nickname. Let's call him Augie. Okay. This skeleton was discovered in 1939 in Fresno and San Benito County. The remains of this dinosaur have also been found in San Diego County. Can we determine what type of dinosaur that was? Unfortunately, it is fragmented. We have a single vertebrae from La Jolla Bay and there there is an isolated leg bone from Carlsbad. Parts of a job from point Loma. So, it's Escada. Not the same individual but these remains don't preserve any anatomical features that are diagnostic. For this dinosaur -- they are here but we don't know who they were. How were the remains discovered? Going back to the introduction about coastal -- 75 million years ago we were coastal. The rocks of that age that reserved the fossils are also marine deposits. In other words, sediments that accumulated in the ocean. The dinosaur remains we have present individuals that were unlucky enough to be washed out to sea where they sent to the floor of the sea. They were preserved. They are now exposed on the surface. Augie from this formation near Fresno -- those fossils were also found in marine deposits. Dinosaurs are rare in California mainly because we don't have land deposits from that age. But we do have a lot of marine deposits. Reporter: Listeners can see a reconstruction of Augie on the website. It's not really a fearsome looking dinosaur. Maybe a little goofy looking. What do we know about how the creature lived? Belongs to a group of duckbilled dinosaurs that are plant eating and they were nicknamed the house of the Cretaceous because they apparently were gregarious and lived in large social groups. They were plant eaters. They could walk on two legs but they were primarily four-legged. They had shorter point lakes compared to the back legs. They could chew their food. The meat eaters weren't delicate eaters -- the crocodile they would write and swallow. These animals were plant eaters and they were able to use this interesting set of teeth and their mouse to process tough and material. People may wonder why California would want a state dinosaur. I don't know. We have a state fossil. The sabertooth cats. Other states have state dinosaurs. It was felt -- when a California? Do you think -- it already has a twitter account -- Augie already has a twitter account. Do you think one of the purposes might be to get the kids and people are interested in science? I would hope so. I hope it wouldn't be a frivolous notion. Yes, certainly school children they were asked to do a report on the state dinosaur, it would be an avenue to get interested in dinosaurs and maybe more science. That was the paleontology curator at the San Diego natural history Museum.