Victoria Arbour and David C. Evans, researchers at the Royal Ontario Museum, have discovered a new species of dinosaur and named it after one of Ghostbuster’s “terror dog”, Zuul.
The reason the name was picked, because it resembles the dog-like demons in the first Ghostbuster movie. The beast, an ankylosaurine, whose scientific name is Zuul Crurivastator, which means “destroyer of shins”, had a sledgehammer-like tail that was used during battle and mating.
Me and my co-author David Evans were batting around ideas for what to name it, and I half-jokingly said, “It looks like Zuul from Ghostbusters,” Arbour told CBC News. “Once we put that out there we couldn’t not name it that.”
Zuul, who lived 75-million-years ago, caught the attention of Dan Aykroyd who played Ray Stantz and co-wrote the film and he visited the museum to see the creature for himself.
We’re so honored that the Royal Ontario Museum would accord the name of this magnificent creature with the appellation we called our terror dog in the movie,” Aykroyd said.
In the film, Dana (Sigourney Weaver) and Louis (Rick Moranis) are transformed into the two terror dogs who serve as the gatekeepers for the evil godlike entity Gozer.
Watch Aykroyd introduce the Zuul dinosaur in the video below.
