First dinosaur bone from Antarctica found in a drawer
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
The fossil was originally found in 1985 on James Ross Island
ByRebecca Morelle Science Editor and Alison FrancisSenior Science Journalist
An unassuming-looking fossil that spent 40 years lying forgotten in a drawer has turned out to be the first dinosaur bone ever found in Antarctica.
The specimen was unearthed in 1985, but the team that discovered it was not sure what it was - so it was stored away in the geology collection of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge.
Now the fossil has been studied by palaeontologists who have confirmed that it is a tail bone from a type of dinosaur called a Titanosaur - this group contained the largest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth.
The discovery helps to reveal more about how these beasts lived in a part of the world where the fossil record is sparse.
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
The discovery was recorded in geologist Mike Thomson's notebook
Dr Mark Evans, the collections manager at BAS, recently spotted the fossil amongst thousands of specimens brought back from expeditions to Antarctica over the decades.
"It's only when you start thinking 'what's in this drawer', that sometimes you come across something and you think, 'Ah, this looks interesting'," he said.
The specimen was originally collected on James Ross Island and its discovery was recorded in a field notebook kept by geologist Dr Mike Thomson.
Alongside a tiny, neat sketch of the fossil dated 9 December 1985 he has written "vertebra of large reptile", noting it was about 10cm wide.
Evans says the team that found it probably thought the fossil belonged to a marine reptile.
But as soon as he saw it, Evans realised the vertebra looked very dinosaur-like. And the date of its discovery meant it would have been the first dinosaur fossil found on the continent.
Image source, Andrew McAfee/Carnegie Museum of Natural History
When Titanosaurs inhabited Antarctica 80 million years ago it would have been covered in lush forest
He called in Prof Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum (NHM) to confirm his discovery.
"Although it's not too much to look at, it actually has a really distinctive shape," Barrett told us, holding the fossil in his hands.
He pointed to a hollow on one end of the fossil and then turned it over to reveal a rounded bump at the other. The vertebrae line up to create a series of ball-and-socket joints running from head to tail.
"As soon as I saw it, I knew what we were dealing with… it was a dead cert we were dealing with a Titanosaur," he said. "This is a combination of features that's completely unique to these types of dinosaurs."
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
A Titanosaur cast, on loan from the NHM, is on display at Peterborough Cathedral
More than 100 species of Titanosaur have now been identified around the world.
All are four-legged plant eaters, with very long necks that helped them reach up into trees and long counter-balancing tails. The very biggest Titanosaurs were more than 115ft (35m) long and weighed about 60 tonnes.
From the size of this tail bone, the scientists estimate the Antarctic Titanosaur was about 23ft (7m) in length.
"Maybe it was a juvenile dinosaur, or maybe it was a genuinely small one - one that was actually bucking the trend for the rest of the group as a smaller adult," explained Barrett.
This dinosaur would have lived 82 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period when Antarctica was very different from how it is today. It would have been covered in lush forest, providing ample food for the plant-eating beast.
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
Dr Mark Evans spotted the fossil in the British Antarctic Survey's geology collections
The long-forgotten fossil now holds an important place in the history of exploration in Antarctica. Other dinosaur fossils have been found in this remote part of the world in the years after 1985 - but not very many.
Antarctica is a challenging place for palaeontologists to work and the ice conceals the prehistoric record in the rock beneath.
"It shows that an area that we now think is really uninhabitable was once actually very habitable and had this huge cast of characters living on it," explained Barrett.
"It's helping us to work out how they fitted into these broader ecosystems at the very bottom of the world about 80 million years ago."
Read the full story at BBC ↗
A fossil vertebra found on James Ross Island in 1985 has been confirmed as Antarctica's first known dinosaur bone. The specimen was collected by a field team but initially stored in the British Antarctic Survey's geology collection in Cambridge, as its identity was uncertain. In recent months, a collections manager recognised it as a Titanosaur tail bone and consulted a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum for confirmation. Titanosaurs were large herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and tails. Based on bone size, this individual was estimated at roughly 7 metres long—small for its species. The creature lived during the Late Cretaceous, approximately 82 million years ago, when Antarctica supported forests rather than ice sheets. The find adds to a sparse fossil record in Antarctica and indicates the continent once hosted diverse ecosystems.
Read the full story at BBC ↗
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
The fossil was originally found in 1985 on James Ross Island
ByRebecca Morelle Science Editor and Alison FrancisSenior Science Journalist
An unassuming-looking fossil that spent 40 years lying forgotten in a drawer has turned out to be the first dinosaur bone ever found in Antarctica.
The specimen was unearthed in 1985, but the team that discovered it was not sure what it was - so it was stored away in the geology collection of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge.
Now the fossil has been studied by palaeontologists who have confirmed that it is a tail bone from a type of dinosaur called a Titanosaur - this group contained the largest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth.
The discovery helps to reveal more about how these beasts lived in a part of the world where the fossil record is sparse.
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
The discovery was recorded in geologist Mike Thomson's notebook
Dr Mark Evans, the collections manager at BAS, recently spotted the fossil amongst thousands of specimens brought back from expeditions to Antarctica over the decades.
"It's only when you start thinking 'what's in this drawer', that sometimes you come across something and you think, 'Ah, this looks interesting'," he said.
The specimen was originally collected on James Ross Island and its discovery was recorded in a field notebook kept by geologist Dr Mike Thomson.
Alongside a tiny, neat sketch of the fossil dated 9 December 1985 he has written "vertebra of large reptile", noting it was about 10cm wide.
Evans says the team that found it probably thought the fossil belonged to a marine reptile.
But as soon as he saw it, Evans realised the vertebra looked very dinosaur-like. And the date of its discovery meant it would have been the first dinosaur fossil found on the continent.
Image source, Andrew McAfee/Carnegie Museum of Natural History
When Titanosaurs inhabited Antarctica 80 million years ago it would have been covered in lush forest
He called in Prof Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum (NHM) to confirm his discovery.
"Although it's not too much to look at, it actually has a really distinctive shape," Barrett told us, holding the fossil in his hands.
He pointed to a hollow on one end of the fossil and then turned it over to reveal a rounded bump at the other. The vertebrae line up to create a series of ball-and-socket joints running from head to tail.
"As soon as I saw it, I knew what we were dealing with… it was a dead cert we were dealing with a Titanosaur," he said. "This is a combination of features that's completely unique to these types of dinosaurs."
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
A Titanosaur cast, on loan from the NHM, is on display at Peterborough Cathedral
More than 100 species of Titanosaur have now been identified around the world.
All are four-legged plant eaters, with very long necks that helped them reach up into trees and long counter-balancing tails. The very biggest Titanosaurs were more than 115ft (35m) long and weighed about 60 tonnes.
From the size of this tail bone, the scientists estimate the Antarctic Titanosaur was about 23ft (7m) in length.
"Maybe it was a juvenile dinosaur, or maybe it was a genuinely small one - one that was actually bucking the trend for the rest of the group as a smaller adult," explained Barrett.
This dinosaur would have lived 82 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period when Antarctica was very different from how it is today. It would have been covered in lush forest, providing ample food for the plant-eating beast.
Image source, Tony Jolliffe/BBC News
Dr Mark Evans spotted the fossil in the British Antarctic Survey's geology collections
The long-forgotten fossil now holds an important place in the history of exploration in Antarctica. Other dinosaur fossils have been found in this remote part of the world in the years after 1985 - but not very many.
Antarctica is a challenging place for palaeontologists to work and the ice conceals the prehistoric record in the rock beneath.
"It shows that an area that we now think is really uninhabitable was once actually very habitable and had this huge cast of characters living on it," explained Barrett.
"It's helping us to work out how they fitted into these broader ecosystems at the very bottom of the world about 80 million years ago."
Read the full story at BBC ↗
A fossil vertebra was discovered on James Ross Island in 1985 and recorded in a geologist's field notebook The specimen spent 40 years stored in the British Antarctic Survey's geology collection in Cambridge before being formally identified The fossil has been confirmed by paleontologists as a tail bone from a Titanosaur Titanosaurs were four-legged plant-eaters with long necks and counter-balancing tails, with over 100 species identified worldwide The largest Titanosaurs exceeded 35 metres in length and weighed around 60 tonnes This Antarctic specimen is estimated at approximately 7 metres long based on vertebra size The dinosaur lived 82 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period Antarctica was covered in lush forest at that time, providing food for plant-eating dinosaurs This is the first dinosaur fossil found in Antarctica The discovery shows that an area now uninhabitable was once habitable with diverse ecosystems The fossil may have been a juvenile or a genuinely small adult Titanosaur relative to its species
Read the full story at BBC ↗
- A dinosaur tail bone discovered on Antarctica's James Ross Island in 1985 was recently identified as the first dinosaur fossil found on the continent, after spending 40 years unexamined in a British Antarctic Survey drawer
- The fossil is a vertebra from a Titanosaur, a group of four-legged herbivores that included Earth's largest land dinosaurs
- The specimen suggests the Antarctic Titanosaur was roughly 23 feet long and lived 82 million years ago when Antarctica was forested, not ice-covered