Niger preserves some of the richest
fossil beds in the world.
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.
Touaregs,
the nomadic “blue men,”
controlled
the Sahara’s caravan routes
for more than 1000 years
Why didn't French paleontologists
like Albert de Lapparent or Philippe
Taquet find Tyrannosaurus
or Triceratops, well-known
dinosaurs from North America? Because
Africa's dinosaurs are unique.
When Lapparent searched the Sahara
in the 1940s, most scientists believed
the world's continents were fixed
in position. Now we know that when
dinosaurs first evolved around 230
million years ago, the continents
were stuck together as a supercontinent
called "Pangea." Over millions
of years, that huge landmass fractured
apart into the continents we know
today.
Map of
the world(A), Africa and Niger(B)
during the Cretaceous Period
For much of the Cretaceous period
(140-65 million years ago), Africa
was an island continent, surrounded
by oceans and seas. New plant-eating
and meat-eating dinosaurs evolved
on Africa that looked quite different
from two-legged Tyrannosaurus
and three-horned Triceratops.
In fact, not a single bone of a tyrannosaur
or horned dinosaur has ever been found
in the Sahara.
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