Atlascopcosaurus, whose moniker was derived from the name of a tool manufacturer, was a small, bipedal dinosaur, which scientists believe
was an herbivore that foraged for its food and tried to avoid larger,
carnivorous predators.

Thirty years ago, the fossil of a new type of dinosaur was extracted and in choosing its name, the research team decided to honor the company that manufactured the tools used in the excavation. That is how Atlas Copco, which supplies tools to the landscape industry and other industries, became immortalized in the form of Atlascopcosaurus.

The dinosaur was an estimated 6.5- to 13-feet long, weighed 276 pounds and lived during the early Cretaceous Period. Scientists infer that it was a small, bipedal herbivore that would have foraged for its food and stayed out of the way of larger, carnivorous predators.

Thomas H. Rich, PhD and Patricia Vickers-Rich discovered Atlascopcosaurus at Dinosaur Cove, a fossil-rich area on the southeast coast of Australia. During Rich's first visit to the area in 1980, he and two colleagues revealed fragments of rock-embedded bone. Four years later, a group of hundreds of student volunteers, paleontology scientists and miners began excavations.

The research group's equipment included Atlas Copco rock drills, pneumatic tools and compressors. The digging teams often worked in dark, narrow tunnels, which at times were muddy and slippery.

The excavation site was located next to a steep cliff overlooking the sea, which complicated work even further. The fossils were embedded in layers of sand, mud and clay that had been pressed together into hard rock for millions of years. It was slow going, with the teams removing approximately 66 pounds of hard rock for every two pounds of dinosaur bone.

Ultimately, the excavation revealed Atlascopcosaurus loadsi. The specific name loadsi refers to Bill Loads, Atlas Copco's manager in Victoria who made the decision to support the project.

In naming the fossil, Rich said he was grateful for the support Atlas Copco provided and impressed with the reliability of the equipment.

"It was because of that record of reliability that, in 2007, I insisted on using Atlas Copco equipment during a dinosaur excavation from permafrost in a tunnel on the North Slope of Alaska," he says.