Fossil kept in drawer for decades turns out to be first ever Antarctica dinosaur bone

 

An artist's reconstruction of the Antarctic sauropod dinosaur.

Andrew McAfee/Carnegie Museum of Natural History

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.

The vertebra or backbone was found in 1985 by a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) expedition, but was initially assessed as belonging to a large reptile, according to a statement from London’s Natural History Museum on Monday.

After multiple decades in storage, it was spotted by Mark Evans, a palaeontologist and manager of the geological collections at the BAS.

“It looks unusual, I just needed to make sure it was what I thought it was,” Evans told CNN on Tuesday.

The fossil belonged to a Titanosaur, a group of long-necked herbivorous sauropods that includes the largest dinosaurs that ever lived.

They had a standard weight of 15 metric tons (16.5 US tons), according to the Natural History Museum. The largest known specimen was estimated to be 37 meters (about 121 feet) long and weighed about 63.5 metric tons (70 US tons).

The fossil is a vertebra belonging to a Titanosaur.

Lucie Goodayle/The Natural History Museum

However, this particular vertebra, which measures around 10 centimeters (four inches) in diameter, belongs to a juvenile or small adult that would have been around six to seven meters (20-23 feet) long, according to the statement.

“This bone sat in a collection drawer for decades until new research revealed it for what it was: rare evidence that long-necked sauropod dinosaurs once lived in Antarctica,” said study coauthor Matthew C. Lamanna, Mary R. Dawson curator in vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, in the statement.

“At first glance this appears to be an unremarkable fossil, but it holds an important place in the history of Antarctic exploration as the first dinosaur fossil found on the continent,” said Paul Barrett, merit researcher at the Natural History Museum, in the statement.

The dinosaur it belonged to lived around 82 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.

The fossil had been in a drawer for decades.

Lucie Goodayle/The Natural History Museum

“At the time this animal lived, we know Antarctica would have (been) covered in lush temperate forest providing ample food for large herbivores,” said Barrett.

The ice that currently covers most of the continent means that it has a sparse fossil record, but that may change in the future, he said.