If I want to see my grandchildren, I'll have to retire in Mongolia

Scientists today announced the discovery of a new species of parrot-sized dinosaur in Mongolia. (I'm serious! Scientists really did discover a new parrot-sized dinosaur in Mongolia. Here's a picture of it.) A lot of the new dinosaur discoveries come from Mongolia, where there's a formation from the Late Cretaceous. It "dates to 84-75 million years ago and has yielded a rich trove of vertebrate fossils including the recently discovered theropod Linheraptor exquisitus."

One learns these things when one's daughter is dinosaur-obsessed.

In other news, Houghton Mifflin recently (2009) published Saving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia. My son received this book for Christmas. It tells the story of a man from Seattle, Tom McCarthy, who has spent his life tracking, reporting on, and attempting to save snow leopards. Blake thinks that if only Tom had a helicopter and/or airplane and/or skis, he'd be livin' the dream.

So. There's a good chance I'll be retiring to Mongolia.

The book has maps showing where snow leopards lived, but I can't find out exactly where in Mongolia one would find that Late Cretaceous formation. That's lazy reporting, don't you think? I do imagine we'll be driving back-and-forth, between the children, quite a lot.

*

Of course, paleontologists are also excavating dinosaur fossils in Montana, and plenty of cougars live in Montana, and Montana has helicopters planes and skis (oh my), so maybe we'll be retiring nearer by!