New type of dinosaur found in Antarctic

New type of dinosaur found in Antarctic

By GILBERT LE GRAS

BUENOS AIRES (July 20, 1999 4:08 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Fossils from a newly discovered land-roving dinosaur adapted to a temperate climate was unearthed earlier this year on an Antarctic island near the tip of South America.

The shin and splint bones and part of the thigh bone of a 12-foot long biped herbivore were discovered in February on the rocky beach of James Ross Island, 30 miles south of Argentina's Marambio Base at the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.

Uncertain of what they had found, two geologists from the Antarctic Institute of Argentina showed the 74-million-year-old fossilized bones to Fernando Novas, a paleontologist with the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences.

"This was a type of dinosaur as yet unknown. Now five species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Antarctica," Novas told Reuters on Tuesday.

The plant-eating member of the Iguanodon genus, a type of dinosaur first discovered in Britain, had four limbs, a long tail and a short neck, stood upright and lived in what was a temperate climate, he said.

The discovery shows dinosaurs may have been able to adapt to different types of climates, such as the Antarctic climate of the time where average water temperature ranged from 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit, Novas added.

Before this discovery, four different types of dinosaurs - the aquatic mosasaur and land-roving hypsilophodon, ankylosaurus and hadrosaurus - had been found in Antarctica.

Another expedition led by Jim Martin of the Museum of Geology in South Dakota, found the remains of the duck-billed hadrosaur on the remote Vega and Seymour Islands, also near the tip of South America in early 1998.

"Dinosaur fossils from this part of Antarctica will always be relatively rare because the rocks were deposited in a shallow marine setting. Therefore, the dinosaur remains are those that were washed out from shore," Martin told Reuters.

He said last year's hadrosaur find was the "first concrete proof" that Argentina and Antarctica were connected during the age of dinosaurs.

Novas agreed.

"Certainly Antarctica was populated with dinosaurs but most of the continent is covered in ice which makes it difficult to excavate," he said.