Wendy Sloboda

Wendy Sloboda is a Canadian fossil hunter from Warner, Alberta. She has made fossil discoveries of dinosaurs and other extinct animals on several continents, with finds in Canada, Argentina, Mongolia, France, and Greenland.^[2] She is commemorated in name of the horned dinosaur Wendiceratops, remains of which she discovered in 2010, as well as the fossil footprint Barrosopus slobodai which she discovered in 2003.^[3][4]

Wendy J. Sloboda
Born	1967/1968[1]
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Lethbridge
Occupation	Fossil collector
Years active	1987–present
Known for	Fossil discoveries

Biography

Illustration of Wendiceratops, which Sloboda discovered in 2010

In 1987, as a teenager, Sloboda discovered fossil eggshells in southern Alberta which she passed on to scientists, who uncovered multiple nests of hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) including fossilized embryos.^[5][6] She enrolled at the University of Lethbridge in 1989 and in the summer of 1990, discovered a hadrosaur skeleton.^[7] She worked for sixteen years as a paleontological technician at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and started her own business, Mesozoic Wrex Repair, a fossil preparation and casting company, in 2001.^[3][8] She earned B.A. in history from the University of Lethbridge in 2001.^[3][9]

Paleontologist David Evans, of the Royal Ontario Museum calls Sloboda "basically a legend in Alberta. She's probably one of the best dinosaur hunters in the world."^[4] Her discoveries include the first pterosaur bonebed in North America,^[10] and a pterosaur leg showing evidence of predation by a small dinosaur^[11] that inspired author Daniel Loxton's 2013 book Pterosaur Trouble.^[12]

Sloboda has made numerous discoveries in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park, including fossil skulls of Corythosaurus, ankylosaurs (including Euoplocephalus) and crocodilians.^[13] In 1999, she discovered and prepared the first known fossils of a gravid (egg-containing) turtle.^[14][15] In 2005, along with paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky, she described the oogenus Reticuloolithus: fossilized eggshells found in Alberta and Montana, believed to have been laid by maniraptoran dinosaurs such as oviraptorosaurs or dromaeosaurids.^[16]

In 2003, while working in South America, Sloboda discovered a fossil footprint in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The footprint was described as a new ichnospecies by paleontologists Rodolfo Coria, Philip J. Currie, Alberto Garrido, and David Eberth, who honored Sloboda by naming it Barrosopus slobodai, which translates as "Sloboda's muddy foot".^[17]

In 2010, Sloboda discovered a rock containing a bone fragment in Southern Alberta, between the Milk River and the Canada-US border.^[4] Evans and Ryan described the remains as a new genus and species, dubbed Wendiceratops pinhornensis, with the genus name combining Sloboda's first name with the suffix "-ceratops", common in horned dinosaur names.^[18] In celebration of having a genus named after her, Sloboda had a drawing of the dinosaur and its scientific name tattooed on her arm.^[4]

Publications

• Chin, K.; Eberth, D. A.; Schweitzer, M. H.; Rando, T. A.; Sloboda, W. J.; Horner, J. R. (2003). "Remarkable preservation of undigested muscle tissue within a Late Cretaceous tyrannosaurid coprolite from Alberta, Canada". PALAIOS. 18 (3): 286–294. Bibcode:2003Palai..18..286C. doi:10.1669/0883-1351(2003)018<0286:rpoumt>2.0.co;2. JSTOR 3515739. PMID 12866547. S2CID 9681069.
• Zelenitsky, Darla K.; Sloboda, Wendy J. (2005). "Eggshells". In Philip J. Currie; Eva Bundgaard Koppelhus (eds.). Dinosaur Provincial Park: A Spectacular Ancient Ecosystem Revealed. Indiana University Press. pp. 398–404. ISBN 0-253-34595-2.