Celebrating The Podokesaurus Holyokensis, MA's State Dinosaur

BOSTON, MA — The top lawmakers in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are celebrating an old carnivore today. No, Gov. Charlie Baker hasn't invited the Liver King to Boston. Rather, Baker and other top officials are recognizing the official state dinosaur.

At a ceremonial signing at the Museum of Science on Wednesday morning, Baker was joined by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and State Rep. Jack Lewis (D-Framingham) to celebrate the naming of the Podokesaurus Holyokensiswith as the state dinosaur.

The idea was a brainchild of Lewis, who in 2020 launched a campaign for Massachusetts residents to vote on a state dinosaur. The Podokesaurus holyokensis was chosen over the Anchisaurus polyzelus in a survey completed by local students.

According to an earlier Patch report, both the Podokesaurus and the Anchisaurus were small dinosaurs whose fossils have been found in the Connecticut River valley — the "holyokensis" in Podokesaurus' name refers to Mount Holyoke, which is near where the reptile's fossils were first discovered in 1911 by geologist Mignon Talbot.

"While they aren't the largest dinosaurs to roam the planet, they begin to tell the story of how dinosaurs came to rule the Earth," Lewis said in a social media post at the time.

Though the ceremony is being held today, Massachusetts legislators actually made the official designation after a vote on May 2.

Lawmakers did have a reason to schedule this ceremony for Wednesday, however, as the signing fell during STEM Week. Baker spoke on the importance of the week, the subject, and how dinosaurs — including the "tough, spunky underdog from Holyoke" — connect all of it.

"If I think about my own childhood ... the thing that got me interested in science in the first place was dinosaurs," Baker said.

"The fact that we're doing this all on STEM Week is 100 percent appropriate," he added.

According to Lewis, it isn't just Baker and himself who are interested in dinosaurs, as some 35,000 people across Massachusetts participated in the project since its inception.

Lewis told the story of how the idea came to be, and how the bill was eventually passed. Listen to his full remarks below: