Wine and Dino at GPDM on Friday

Ralph, the mysterious sauropod that is displayed at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum and Field Station (GPDM) now has been published for the first time since his excavation in July of 2005 in Fergus County.

The museum will be hosting its annual Wine & Dino event on Friday, June 16, which will display the publication of Ralph as well as a brand new exhibit that only Cary Woodruff has seen.

Woodruff, the Director of Paleontology at the GPDM received notice of the publication on Wednesday, May 31 after submitting the finding nearly a year ago in mid-June of 2016.

"Our publication is the first scientific work that has been done on Ralph the Camarasaurus," Woodruff said. "It's the first piece of science that has ever been done on it."

According to Woodruff, there are three things that make Ralph a unique specimen.

"The first thing is while you go into Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, you find tons of Camarasaurus, in fact it's the most common dinosaur in the states," Woodruff said. "There had never ever been one found in Montana until Ralph. So Ralph is the first Camarasaurus ever found in Montana."

The second unique thing about Ralph was his age.

"When we cut open the bones to actually determine how old Ralph was when it died, we found out that Ralph is actually one of the oldest dinosaurs that we know of at the time of its death," Woodruff said. "We estimate that Ralph was about 30 years old which (is unique) considering that our oldest duckbills are in their teenage years and our oldest T-Rexes are in their twenties."

The third thing that makes Ralph unique is his size.

"Even this looks like a really big dinosaur... Ralph is actually really small," Woodruff said. "People who had looked at Ralph before had thought 'oh, it's a small animal, so it must be young.'"

Those looking at Ralph in past years have also noticed how different Ralph's bone structure was from a typical Camarasaurus and thought that Ralph was a new species.

"But what we actually determined by studying it in combination of studying the bones and cutting into the bones is the reason Ralph looks so weird is Ralph is a really old animal but he is just small. Think of it as like the runt of the litter."

The GPDM was not discouraged upon finding that Ralph wasn't a new breed of species.

"Even though Ralph isn't a new dinosaur that doesn't mean it's less important or takes away from how significant it really is," Woodruff said. "It's the fact that he is the first one from Montana and all of these odd things about him. The odd size of the bones basically tells us, no we can't assume the age of the dinosaur based on the size or that an odd shape here or there means that's it's something new."

Though Woodruff's findings were published, he and other paleontologists will continue to study Ralph.

The GPDM will be hosting its annual Wine and Dino event at 6 p.m. this Friday at both museums.

"It will be here (at the GPDM) but we partner with the Phillips County Museum," Woodruff said. "It will be a fun night at both museums. It's a completely free event. Families and everyone is invited. Please come."

Ray J's will be providing food at an additional cost.

"At 7 p.m. we will be unveiling a brand new exhibit here at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum," Woodruff said. "If you want to know what is, you gotta come."

Woodruff explained the name of the event.

"It's just a play on words," he said. "We will have alcoholic beverages available for purchase if people want to do that but it's just a cute name. The event is open to the whole family. We want everyone to come."