LOS ANGELES— The latest dinosaur to be mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species but also the only one on the planet whose bones are uniquely green, according to museum officials.

Named "Gnatalie" (pronounced Natalie) for the gnats that swarmed during the excavation, this long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaur's fossils have a distinctive dark mottled olive green coloration. This unusual hue is due to the presence of the mineral celadonite, which entered the fossils during the fossilization process.

Typically, fossils are brown due to silica or black due to iron minerals. Green fossils are extremely rare because celadonite usually forms in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions, which typically destroy buried bones. However, in this case, volcanic activity around 50 million to 80 million years ago made it hot enough to replace a previous mineral in the bones with celadonite.

Gnatalie lived approximately 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic Era, making it older than the more well-known Tyrannosaurus rex, which lived around 66 million to 68 million years ago.

Researchers discovered Gnatalie's bones in 2007 in the Badlands of Utah. This area is renowned for its rich deposits of dinosaur fossils, but Gnatalie's discovery has been particularly remarkable due to its unique coloration and well-preserved state.

"Dinosaurs are a great vehicle for teaching our visitors about the nature of science, and what better than a green, almost 80-foot-long dinosaur to engage them in the process of scientific discovery and make them reflect on the wonders of the world we live in!" Luis M. Chiappe of the museum’s Dinosaur Institute said in a statement about his team’s discovery.

Matt Wedel, an anatomist and paleontologist at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, near Los Angeles, recalled hearing "rumors of a green dinosaur way back when I was in graduate school." Upon seeing the bones while they were still being cleaned, he remarked that they were "not like anything else that I've ever seen."

Gnatalie is similar to a sauropod species called Diplodocus. The scientific description of the discovery will be published in a paper next year. Sauropods, a family of massive herbivores that includes the Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus, are known for their enormous size and long necks. Gnatalie will be the biggest dinosaur at the museum and will be showcased this fall in the museum's new welcome center.

John Whitlock, a professor at Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, Pennsylvania, and a researcher specializing in sauropods, expressed excitement about the completeness of Gnatalie's skeleton. "It’s tremendously huge, it really adds to our ability to understand both taxonomic diversity... but also anatomical diversity," Whitlock said.

The dinosaur was named "Gnatalie" last month after the museum held a public vote on five potential names. The options included Verdi, derived from the Latin word for green; Olive, after the green fruit symbolizing peace, joy, and strength in many cultures; Esme, short for Esmeralda, which is Spanish for Emerald; and Sage, a green and iconic L.A. plant also grown in the Natural History Museum’s Nature Gardens.

Gnatalie's display promises to be a major attraction at the museum, drawing visitors eager to see the unique green dinosaur and learn more about its fascinating history and the scientific discoveries it represents.