First Dinosaur Bone Found in Antarctica Confirmed
Palaeontologists confirmed the 1985 fossil is a Titanosaur tail bone, helping explain dinosaur life in Antarctica where fossils are rare.
- Palaeontologist Mark Evans identified Antarctica's first dinosaur bone while reviewing British Antarctic Survey holdings, ending 40 years of storage in a drawer.
- Geologist Mike Thomson originally unearthed the specimen on James Ross Island on December 9, 1985, recording it as a "vertebra of large reptile" in his field notebook before it remained forgotten for decades.
- The fossil is a caudal vertebra from a Titanosaur that lived around 82 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period, with scientists estimating the animal was about 23ft long.
- Professor Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum confirmed the identification, noting the bone's distinctive features; the study was published in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
- This discovery offers new clues about how Titanosaurs spread across the Southern Hemisphere, with findings suggesting Antarctica was once highly habitable, helping scientists understand these giants' role in ancient ecosystems about 80 million years ago.
119 Articles
119 Articles
A fossil that spent decades in a drawer of a collection has turned out to belong to the first dinosaur remains discovered in Antarctica.
Admittedly, the bone doesn't look quite eye-catching for a layman – for the researchers who discovered it 40 years ago, but apparently not either. That's why the fossil was simply stowed in a drawer. Only now, scientists have discovered what a sensational finding it is... About 40 years ago, a team of researchers discovered the unsettled bone in Antarctica. As "the whirl of a large reptile," geologist Mike Thompson had described it in his notebo…
The anonymous fossil lay forgotten in a drawer for 40 years. Now it has been revealed that it is the first dinosaur bone found in Antarctica,
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First-ever dinosaur bone from Antarctica had been sitting in a drawer for decades
A fossil that was sitting in a collection drawer for decades has been found to belong to the first dinosaur remains ever discovered in Antarctica.
First Dinosaur Bone Ever Collected in Antarctica Finally Identified
Life reconstruction of the Antarctic sauropod. Credit: Andrew McAfee / Carnegie Museum of Natural History A rare Antarctic dinosaur fossil collected more than 40 years ago has finally been identified after decades of being unnoticed in a museum collection. Researchers identified the fossil as part of the tail of a titanosaur, a long-necked plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period. Although the fossil confirms the presen…
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