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October
23, 2000
5:15pm
At this very moment,
Rudd, Eric, Greg, Jack, Tim and Hans are
pounding on mallets, swinging pickaxes,
cutting strips of burlap, sawing wood and
mixing plaster - all in an intense effort
to get an unbelievable discovery out of
the ground. Yesterday we found a small,
armored ornithiscian dinosaur that may be
a distant relative of famous North American
armored dinosaurs like Stegosaurus
and Ankylosaurus.
When Eric and Rudd first
came upon the hematite-encrusted bones eroding
from the top of a hillside, it looked like
a mishmash of material - multiple pieces
of hollow femora (thigh bones) that might
belong to a carnivore; squat vertebrae (backbones)
that might belong to a crocodile; scutes
(bony plates) that also might belong to
a crocodile; a tiny claw. then slowly another
picture emerged. While we may have bones
from more than one animal, the scutes -
with their high lengthwise keel - and the
shape of the femora and other associated
bones points to an animal we never expected
to find.
Rare as
hens' teeth on southern continents like
Africa, the small armor plates (top), thigh
bone, and triangular teeth represent a new
species and the first record of an armored
dinosaur on the continent of Africa.
(Pen for scale)
Paul, meanwhile, is
flat on his back with a bad case of food
poisoning due, the doctor thinks, to a piece
of melon he ate late last night. Others
have joked, however, that it is the magnitude
of the discovery that has knocked him off
his feet.
"This is the longest
time I've been out during a field season.
I felt so bad when I first got sick I thought
I might have an alien in me trying to get
out," he joked as he began to feel better,
making reference to the "Aliens" movie the
team watched during our last respite in
Agadez.
PREVIOUS WORK
IN THE AREA
Like most
sites, bones are inconspicuous amidst the
seemingly
endless 130-million-year-old outcrop of
Camp 3.
Our move to Camp 3 took
us out of the true desert and put us on
the edge of the sahel - the iron red-dirt,
grassy scrub of the "sub-Sahara." This is
the realm of Touareg and Fulani nomads,
and is characterized by a long falaise
(French for "cliff"), in front of which
lies a flat dusty plateau. This is where,
130 million years ago, the giant dinosaur
Jobaria and the quick carnivore Afrovenator
roamed. One of the questions on our minds
as we relocated about 50 miles south of
Agadez was, simply, what kinds of dinosaurs
would we find?
We knew we would find
Jobaria. Jobaria is a 70-foot-long
plant eater. Expeditions in 1993 and 1997
to this area resulted in multiple articulated
Jobaria skeletons, including a skull
as well as skeletons of juveniles. We know
this herbivore well - and have nearly every
part except a complete foot and parts of
the skull. If we find these parts, we will
collect them, but otherwise, our task is
to find non-Jobaria dinosaurs.
Mitten-shaped
Jobaria teeth are all that remain of ancient
jaws.
(awl for scale.)
The other animal we've
encountered in this formation is Afrovenator.
In 1993 a curved, yellow claw led us to
the discovery of a site that preserved nearly
70% of this predator - the first skeleton
of a carnivorous dinosaur from Africa's
Cretaceous. The name "Afrovenator"
- "African hunter"-was most appropriate.
Although we have come
across teeth and other bones of Afrovenator,
bones of Jobaria are much more common--nine
times out of ten. One of the remarkable
aspects of this formation is that we hardly
find a bone or tooth that doesn't belong
to Jobaria. The trick for us is to
prospect so far and wide that we find more
than Jobaria.
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