From CBC
Meet the Albertavenator curriei, a feathered, toothy dinosaur that once roamed a lush coastal plain in what is now Alberta's Drumheller Valley, a species that now carries the name of a famed Canadian paleontologist.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/new-feathered-dinosaur-named-currie-1.4208421The dinosaur was named after Philip Currie, a professor at the University of Alberta. Currie is a Canada Research chair and has worked for decades on predatory dinosaurs.
"This is a great honour … it's in fact an Alberta dinosaur and it's a type of dinosaur that I've worked on over the years," Currie told CBC News. "It's extra meaningful."
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It's well-known that this type of dinosaur — a troodontid — is one of Currie's favourites, said David Evans, author of the paper naming the species published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Because fossils and fragments of this type of dinosaur are so rare, Evans said he couldn't miss the chance to honour Currie."Given what Phil has done for Alberta paleontology and the contributions he's made to the study of these feathered dinosaurs, it seemed only appropriate to name it after him," said Evans, who is the Temerty Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum.
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