Update On Dinosaur Discoveries
Camp 1
7:00pm 10/03/00
Articulated vertebrae from a new dog-sized carnivorous dinosaur.
Camp 1 Discoveries To Date
After three intense weeks of work at Camp 1, a fuller picture of what Africa was like 110 million years ago has already emerged.
Early Work In The Area
When we first came to work in the Tenere in 1997, we had been preceded by the work of two French paleontologists: Albert Lapparent in the1940s and Philippe Taquet in the 1960s and early 70s.
Lapparent did much of his prospecting alone or with an assistant and often prospected on camelback. There were no paved roads anywhere in the desert. In preliminary surveys of the desert, he found and described isolated dinosaur bones and giant crocodile teeth.
Paul works on an articulated Ouranosaurus hind limb
Twenty years later Lapparent returned to the area, joined by a young colleague, Philippe Taquet. After three expeditions, Taquet and his team discovered and named several dinosaurs including single skeletons of two plant-eating dinosaurs – Ouranosaurus (“Southern reptile”) and Lourdosaurus (“heavy reptile.”) Ouranosaurus is a sail-backed forerunner of duck-billed dinosaurs while Lourdosaurus, like its close cousin Iguanodon, has an enormous thumb spike. Lapparent and Taquet found evidence of other dinosaurs, including large hand-claws and jaw fragments from predatory dinosaurs, but not enough to understand what these dinosaurs looked like.
Even their preliminary work suggested a rich fauna. In addition to dinosaurs they found other reptiles, including the skull of a huge crocodile, which they named Sarcosuchus, and three turtle species.
New small turtle
When our expedition team arrived here in 1997, we set up a campsite without knowing much about the area. In hindsight our camp turned out to be centrally located a among some of the richest beds, but we chose the site originally (as we did this year) for the protective configuration and beauty of the surrounding dunes.
Although we had the descriptions of the fossil finds made by the French expeditions, their
maps were not good enough to clearly show where they found their specimens, and so we started prospecting from scratch.
Dinosaur bones clearly were plentiful throughout the region: the outcrop was a continuous stack of river-deposited sandstones. These rivers, many of which were broad, buried the animals that lived along their margins – like dinosaurs- as well as animals that actually lived in the rivers, like the crocodiles, turtles and fish.
Our work here at Camp 1 of the 2000 Expedition of Niger has enriched our picture of ancient life on Africa.
New small crocodile skull
New river animals include small crabs and the teeth, bones and scales from many species of fish. We have found evidence of a enormous pterosaur – a flying reptile with a wingspan of 20 feet (6 and a half meters). Life on the banks of the rivers now includes a new large turtle with a domed shell that is more than one foot long. Eric Love spotted the six inch long skull of a new small crocodile.
110 million year old seeds
We have found evidence of new plants as well. Greg Wilson, who is searching for the remains of the smallest animals including small mammals, found a handful of fossilized seeds measuring less than an inch long (about 2 centimeters).
Sarcosuchus – The World’s Largest Crocodile
This Sarcosuchus would have been almost forty feet long as shown by team members laying on the ground.
French paleontologists named the huge crocodile Sarcosuchus, – (“sarco” meaning “flesh” and “suchus” meaning “crocodile”) based on a partial skull. Until now, nothing was known about the rest of its skeleton, such as the length of its limbs, the pattern of its body armor, and how big it could get when fully grown. Neither the skull or any of the other bones have been described or studied, and so where it fits in crocodile evolution and its relationship to living crocodiles remains a mystery.
Over the last few weeks we have found many additional bones, including most of the spine, pelvic girdle and some limb bones. Complete armor plates from the back measure one foot in width. Skulls of various sizes will allow us to establish a growth series. With a body length of over 40 feet, Sarcosuchus, may have been the largest crocodile that ever lived.
New dinosaurs have also been found. One is a small, two-legged plant eater that had a slender jaw with leaf-shaped teeth.
The second dinosaur, found by Chris Sidor, was a fleet-footed predator, no more than three feet long. Its slender neck and ribcage were preserved poking out of the rock. Its long, clawed hind leg was uncovered as we dug around the exposed bones. This new carnivore is very exciting because nothing is known about Africa’s smaller dinosaurs during Cretaceous times, when small dinosaurs like Deinonychus and Velociraptor roamed the northern landmasses.
Most people think that all dinosaurs are large, but there are as many moderate sized dinosaurs – six feet or less – as there are large dinosaurs. These interesting plant eaters and meat eaters, however, are rarely preserved because their bones and skeletons are more fragile than their larger cousins.
The new small dinosaur will provide the first good look at a small predatory dinosaur from this time period.
Suchomimus
Furicula (wishbone) of the 40 foot spinosaur, Suchomimus.
The unusual fin-backed spinosaur we discovered during the last expedition, Suchomimus, is the largest and most common predator in the fossil beds at Camp 1. We uncovered more than 85% of the animal in 1997 and were able to mount a life-sized skeleton to display at the announcement. On this expedition we have found another beautifully preserved skeleton that includes bones we didn’t have from the first skeleton – including a huge hind foot and a wishbone (!) that fit between the
New Carnivore
We long suspected there was at least one other large meat eater (at least the size of Suchomimus, 36-feet long) on the scene 110 million years ago because we have on many occasions found its dagger-shaped teeth. These flattened teeth look very different from Suchomimus teeth. Suchomimus teeth resemble crocodile teeth – they are cylindrical in cross-section and hook-shaped – well suited for catching fish. In fact, the only way to be sure you have a Suchomimus tooth and not a crocodile tooth is to examine the edges for very small serrations, like the serrations found on the teeth of predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus.
Large tooth from new carnivore.
We long suspected there was at least one other large meat eater (at least the size of Suchomimus, 36-feet long) on the scene 110 million years ago because we have on many occasions found its dagger-shaped teeth. These flattened teeth look very different from Suchomimus teeth. Suchomimus teeth resemble crocodile teeth – they are cylindrical in cross-section and hook-shaped – well suited for catching fish. In fact, the only way to be sure you have a Suchomimus tooth and not a crocodile tooth is to examine the edges for very small serrations, like the serrations found on the teeth of predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus.
Pelvic bone of a new 110 million year old predatory dinosaur.
We are zeroing in on the animal, but are only beginning to make out what it looked like. It probably wasn’t as common or didn’t frequent the river habitat as much as Suchomimus. The flattened teeth with the wrinkled enamel, and the shape of the skull bone over the eye gave us an early clue that we might be dealing with a fore-runner of Africa’s tyrant dinosaur, Carcharodontosaurus, a huge dinosaur that lived 90 million years ago.
One of the finds while at Camp 1 confirmed these suspicions. We now have several jaw bones with teeth in place, a pelvic girdle, vertebrae – all consistent with an animal that grew to the size of Suchomimus, one that may be an early relative of Carcharodonotosaurus.
We are very excited about this new dinosaur- it would be nice to find more of this theropod, but it is very rare.
Nigersaurus
The Nigersaurus was a 600 tooth plant eater with shovel shaped head. The team has trenched around this Nigersaurus fossil and it is ready for a plaster jacket.
One of the most satisfying outcomes of Camp 1 is that we have filled out the skeleton of Nigersaurus, the 600-toothed plant eater we have come to know from our previous discoveries. We are missing only a few bones of the skull, feet and the tip of the tail.
Nigersaurus we now know, is a relative of North America’s Jurassic Diplodocus. It used to be thought that Diplodocus and all of its close relatives (the diplodocoids) died out at the end of the Jurassic. We now know that the group did not go entirely extinct. One group of these long-necked plant eaters survived into the Cretaceous period on southern continents like Africa. Nigersaurus – with its absolutely bizarre jaw adaptations – will shortly be the best known of these Cretaceous descendants.
Partial jaw of a juvenile Nigersaurus.
Nigersaurus was not a very large sauropod as sauropods go. It probably reached a maximum size of 50 feet in length. The discovery of a tiny jaw of a Nigersaurus hatchling, however, was quite a surprise! All dinosaurs hatched from eggs, and even sauropods like Nigersaurus started out quite small.
We have more than half the field season ahead of us, but as you can imagine with this kind of an exciting start, we are already contemplating how we will prepare, study, describe and announce these new findings. Many of them will be named as new species and together are giving us the most complete picture of life on Africa during 110 million years ago.