by Chuck Bednar
A newly-identified species of ankylosaur sporting a horned face and a spiked, club-like tail has been named in honor of Zuul, the monstrous demigod featured in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, according to new research published this week in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Take one look at the new species, officially named Zuul crurivastator, and it’s easy to see why the paleontologists who discovered it chose to name it after the fictional beast: it bears a striking resemblance to the entity that possessed Sigourney Weaver’s character Dana Barrett in the film. “We couldn’t resist,” Dr. Victoria Arbour, a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto and one of the researchers who discovered the new species, told USA Today. In fact, they even brought in Dan Aykroyd, who played Ray Stanz in the movie, to introduce the creature and discuss its similarities to Zuul in a short video.
“We are so honored that the Royal Ontario Museum would accord the name of this magnificent creature with the appellation that we called our terror god in the movie,” Aykroid said.
The new species was discovered in Hill County, Montana and is believed to be approximately 75 million years old, the Museum explained on its website. Its entire body was covered in scales and it was about 20 feet long with a roughly 10-foot tail, according to Los Angeles Times reports.
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