Standard procedure at the Suncor Energy mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta. went out the window when a shovel operator discovered dinosaur bones believed to be 110 million years old.

Officials from the Royal Tyrell Museum were contacted after the shovel operator noticed "something different in the wall that he was digging at with the shovel," Suncor spokeswoman Lanette Lundquist explains in a Fort McMurray Today story. "This was really like finding a needle in a haystack."

The Suncor staffers took a few initial photos before forwarding the news to museum officials, who were promptly on location the next day.

The bones are believed to have belonged to an ankylosaur, one of the most commonly known of the armoured dinosaurs. Featuring short limbs, hard plates and a clubbed tail, this formidable plant eater roamed the earth during the late cretaceous period.

"They (museum officials) thought it was a marine reptile which is what is normally found in the oilsands and it turns out it's an actual dinosaur," said museum marketing coordinator Leanna Mohan in the story.

The near-whole fossil had been preserved "very well," according to Mohan, making this a significant find in the eyes of experts. She believes the dinosaur may have been carried out to sea before sinking to the bottom.

"It's unexpected to find a dinosaur in this location because the formation was laid down in the sea and dinosaurs are land animals," Mohan said. "As well, ankylosaurs are rare, so it looks like a great find."

Typical discoveries at Fort McMurray have revealed invertebrates such as ammonites and clams. The rare skeletal remains of marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs have been found on occasion - an ichthyosaur was discovered in 2001.

But this latest find has museum officials eager to get the remains on display.

"The scientists were very excited to discover that this was, in fact, a dinosaur," said Mohan. "They're going to work with Suncor to get it out of the ground safely and transport it back here."

(Getty Photo)