The Capitalsaurus: Washington DC's Best Kept Secret

Contrary to popular belief, the dinosaurs native to Washington DC are not Federal employees, and they don't work in the Capitol, the White House or even the Supreme Court. While those holdovers from the Jurassic period hog the front page of the Washington Post and pretty much all the other pages, too, the real dinosaurs maintain relative anonymity. But if you're a dinosaur fan, hark! One hundred million years ago, DC was overrun with dinosaurs and if you know where to look, you can find their fossilized remains today. Not in the Smithsonian, either. Outside, in and around the Capital City.

Dinosaurs are so prevalent here that, in 1998, DC adopted a dinosaur as its first official symbol under home rule. DC did not pick just any random dinosaur. No, DC has its own dinosaur, the Capitalsaurus. This popular creature even has a street named after it in Southeast Washington: Capitalsaurus Court, at First and F Streets, S.E. This is the location where the first dinosaur fossil to be found in Washington, DC was unearthed in 1898. While digging a trench to lay sewer pipe, workmen uncovered the tailbone of a previously unknown dinosaur that was misclassified for a century before being named the Capitalsaurus in 1998. While the Capitalsaurus keeps a low profile, (no doubt to evade the inane agendas of lobbyists and legislators), the mayor issues an annual proclamation declaring January 28 Capitalsaurus Day, and school children eagerly celebrate the occasion.

DC is the fourth most popular destination for U..S. travelers, according to information compiled by the Travel Industry Association of America in 2004. Luckily, the travel guide books are so preoccupied with DC's museums and monuments, they haven't told the 17.7 million annual visitors where to look for dinosaur bones. If they did, DC not only wouldn't have a secret, it probably wouldn't have any more dinosaurs! Psst. Dinosaur hunting isn't all that glamorous, anyway. If you're thinking rustic walk in the woods, let's adjust that visual imagery. A more likely venue for finding dino bones is a construction dig along the edge of a busy highway.

Paleontologist Peter Kranz is a prominent authority on DC's local dinosaur and President of the Dinosaur Fund. He organizes fossil hunts and dinosaur digs for school children and other dinosaur fans when he's not busy doing research. In his booklet Dinosaurs in Washington, D.C., he describes the Capitalsaurus as a meat-eating dinosaur 30 feet long and weighing 2 1/2 tons. Lonely by no means, the Capitalsaurus apparently roamed the Capital region with the Maryland State Dinosaur, the Astrodon, the armored Priconodon,the horned Magoludon, and probably Hadrosaurus foukils and mosasaurs.

Sources: Dinosaurs in Washington, DC, by Peter Kranz; www.dinosaurfund.org,www.washington.org