Overview
- A study published Monday reports that Mark Evans of the British Antarctic Survey reexamined a drawer specimen collected in 1985 on James Ross Island and, with specialists including Paul Barrett, identified it as a titanosaur caudal vertebra.
- The bone measures about 10 centimetres across, researchers date it to roughly 82 million years ago, and they estimate the animal that bore it was about 6–7 metres long.
- Authors say the fossil is the first confirmed dinosaur bone from Antarctica but that the exact species cannot be determined from this single, small vertebra.
- Scientists propose the vertebra was buried in marine sediments after a carcass floated out to sea, a hypothesis used to explain how a land animal ended up preserved in offshore rock.
- The find highlights the scientific value of museum collections and suggests that retreating Antarctic ice could expose more fossils, changing how and where paleontologists search for southern-hemisphere remains.