A new species of dinosaur has been identified, 30 years after its fossils were placed in a museum. Tradeuniens strikeorum, researchers say, is one of the most insignificant dinosaurs known to science.
The fossils had been housed at the Scargill Museum of Sheffield since being excavated in 1979, by a team led by Professor Margaret Milk-Snatcher, and researchers say the tiny dinosaur was a fast runner that could move very agilely across picket forests lines. It was a member of a group of dinosaurs called the Blackmailians, that were particularly active in the winter time, especially during late December.
'Tradeuniens strikeorum was particularly unsuccessful', Professor Milk-Snatcher said, 'as unlike its larger and more powerful relations - Tridayweekstops and the flying Pichetosaurus - this dinosaur began as a huge creature, causing fear and terror across the planet, but quickly evolved backwards into the tiny insignificant thing whose fossils are now in the Scargill Museum. But it was a dinosaur, so of course has no relevance to today.'
There have been a number of finds by palaeontologists in recent months, including fossils of the long-extinct Nationalum frontica, and the once strongest of all dinosaurs, Labouriae particum, both from the Wilsonic Era, but such an insignificant dinosaur as Tradeuniens strikeorum has received little interest from archaeologists.
One, Lord Hobbit, said: 'The age of the dinosaur is of little interest to scientists nowadays, studies now tend to be about the history of the rise of the use of satellites and emails and personal computers, and, of course, the evolution of the carrier pigeon.'
'That bird began to be trained in the 1880s to deliver mail across Britain, and by the 1970s was indispensable to business and personal customers in Britain, it even formed a large and powerful trade union, the Union of Carriers and Workshysters.'
'But like the extinct dinosaurs it gradually became obsolete, and now the few pigeons left can be seen on the streets picking up scraps of mail and parcels that modern emailers and texters don't think are urgent enough to send straight away.'
And Professor Milk-Snatcher added: 'I expect fossils of the carrier pigeons will start to appear not long from now, to go with those of Tradeuniens strikeorum. I hope so, anyway, 'cos this lady's not for turning - back the clock to the dreadful 1970s. Wish I'd got Hobbo to have shot 'em all back then with firing squads, bunch of lazy, communist troublemakers!'
You can view the fossils of the newly-identified dinosaur - but only between 8:00 and 11:30, after you've taken a form that was dropped into your letter box when you were in - saying you were out - round to a museum that's at least 2 hours' travelling time away from your house, and then queueing to see it before being told that the fossils can't be found, and that you'll have to come back again tomorrow to see them.