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October 3 , 2000
Camp 1
7:00pm
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. E. 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
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