Recent Discoveries
Since the first discoveries made by William Buckland in 1824, dinosaurs have literally been leaping out of the ground, with new and important discoveries being made very decade. Contrary to the belief of many people, not all dinosaurs have been discovered. The rate of new discoveries has been increasing dramatically since they were first named all those years ago. When palaeontology was in its infancy around 11 species were discovered each decade. Now however, as the science is expanding and new techniques are being used, the number of new finds has risen to around 60 per decade. In the last decade, about 15 to 24 species have been discovered per year, with many of these proving to be scientifically very important finds.
Not only has the rate increased, but the productive areas of fossils have moved as well. Historically Montana and Wyoming were the dinosaur capitals of the world, but the days of the white Anglo-Saxon dominance in the field is coming to an end, with amazing discoveries coming out of Mongolia, Argentina, and most importantly China.
One of the most important finds in palaeontological history was the unearthing of what appeared to be dinosaurs with feathers. It had long been theorised the birds had evolved from the dinosaurs. This fist being discussed when Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1862. Scientists were unsure whether this was a transmission fossil, or as Richard Owen thought, the first bird outside of the dinosaur lineage. Further evidence was proposed by John Ostrom in 1964 with his discovery and naming of the Deinonychus atirrhopus, which appeard to share many characterisitcs with the birds. All of this theory was based on skeltal similarities, but in 1996 a team in the Chinese province of Liaoning, named the fist definite dinosaur that had feathers, the Sinosauropteryx. This was also important as it did not appear to be closely related to the Archaeopteryx, and does not lie near the clade Aves, which contains all modern birds. Some still argued that the feathers were merely remnants of the fossilisation process, but the resemblance to local fossilised bird feathers is remarkable. Since then another 14 feathered dinosaurs have been produced, the most famous being the microraptor discovered in the same area as Sinosauropteryx in 2000. Shown in figure 1.
As of the time that this website was published the latest fossil discovered was the Sinocalliopteryx in 2007, being the largest of the feathered dinosaurs at around 7 and a half foot long. These finds have led palaeontologists to assume that many of the other therapod dinosaurs had feathers, including the Tyrannosaurus rex.
As well as the fascinating feathered dinosaurs, there have been many exciting Sauropod findings, with many of these coming out of Argentina. It was always presumed that the blue whale was the largest ever animal. New research however is suggesting that there could have been dinosaurs that would rival the whale for this title. The argentinosaurus, found in Argentina is known to be around 115 feet long, longer than the largest whale recorded by around 5 feet. However there is much speculation on its true size, as only vertebrae, ribs, tibia and a sacrum have been found. It is also theorised that there was an even bigger sauropod named Bruhathkayosaurus, found in 1989, again in Argentina reaching in at around 145 feet. As with the argentinosaurus, there is much controversy, and the likelihood of it being this large is fairly doubtful. What we can say, is that this area will most likely be producing many new and large Sauropod species, possibly unearthing one that is indeed the biggest animal ever.
Mongolia has also been a centre of excellence for fossils. It was reported that in one week in 2006, 67 dinosaurs were unearthed, none of which were new, but it gives a good impression of the fossilisation rate of this area, and the potential to generate lots of new species. Due to the high preservation rates in this area, more fragile specimens have been exposed here, in particular dinosaur eggs, in which Mongolia is the best place to find preserved eggs. The first egg was found in the 1920’s on an expedition sent by Henry Osborn, and since then many have come about. These eggs sometimes contain the embryos of dinosaurs, and this can be very valuable in the study of dinosaur development, one such example is seen in figure 2. One famous find, that lead to the accusation of one dinosaur as being an egg stealer, was the case of the oviraptor huddled over what was thought o have been protoceratops eggs. This has since been found to be false, but the detail in the find was phenomenal. There have been many more important and fantastic finds from Mongolia, such as the famous fossil of the struggle between the velociraptor (figure 3) and the protoceratops, with the two animals being preserved locked in combat. The strange therizinosaurus was also discovered in Mongolia, with its 1 meter long scythe like claw (figure 4), used for bringing vegetation towards its mouth making Therezinosaurus the only herbivorous theropod. It is not just dinosaurs that have been preserved here; one new marsupial specimen has changed the way that palaeontologists see the evolution and spread of marsupials. The specimen named Deltatheridium, had been discovered for quite some time, but scientists were unsure as to whether it was marsupial or placental. The new find proves that it is indeed a marsupial that was around during the late Cretaceous period, with the possibility of marsupial evolution occurring in Asia, and then spreading to Australasia and South America.
There are many more key discoveries occurring all over the world, and this is just trying to show an overview of the kind of important work that is being carried out, as well as showing that dinosaur hunting is not a dead past time carried out by Victorian gentleman (and ladies), but an ever expanding science.
Figure 2: embryo inside an egg.
from http://www.stonecompany.com/dinoeggs/study/images/eggstudy/ovieggz.jpg
Figure 3:
from http://www.stonecompany.com/dinoeggs/study/images/eggstudy/ovimomz.jpg
URLs:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/A-Golden-Dinosaur-Discovery-Era-Lies-Ahead-41192.shtml
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/msu-pf6091406.php
http://www.wikipedia.org.uk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/226722.stm
Previous
Fig 2. Embryo inside egg
Figure 3. Velociraptor mongoliensis skull ©
Figure 4. Therezinosaurus claw ©