Darren H. Tanke (born 1960) is a Canadian fossil preparation technician of the Dinosaur Research Program at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta.
From 1979 until 2005 (when Dr. Currie left the Tyrrell to become a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton) Tanke worked as a lab and field technician, a job he still holds today.
He worked on a large monograph describing a new species (Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai), with senior co-authors Philip J. Currie and Wann Langston, Jr.
This publication describes skull material from the extremely rich Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai bonebed on Pipestone Creek, southwest of Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada.
The Cenomanian (early Late Cretaceous) marine bird Pasquiaornis tankei (Tokaryk, Cumbaa and Storer, 1997) from Carrot River, Saskatchewan, Canada was named in Tanke's honor.
These include biographies of some of the lesser-known paleontology workers in the province, relocating "lost" fossil specimens, the World War I sinking of the merchant ship SS Mount Temple and her Albertan dinosaur cargo, etc.
His current lab work involves preparation of varied Albertan hadrosaur and ceratopsian specimens for Dr. Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
Another project, done in his own time, was the 2010 reenactment of the 1910-1916 paleontological expeditions who used large flat-bottomed boats or scows in their search for Late Cretaceous dinosaur bones on the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada.