Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 7 February 2018
Rare dinosaur discovery in Egypt could signal more finds

By MAGGIE HYDE a haystack, it was also the
Associated Press product of back-breaking
MANSOURA, Egypt (AP) — work. The team had been
A skeleton has been un- scouring the area of the
earthed in Egypt’s West- find more than 750 kilome-
ern Desert, whose ancient ters (466 miles) southwest
sands have long helped of the capital for five years
preserve remains, but un- before they found the par-
like most finds this one isn’t tial skeleton of the Man-
a mummy — it’s a dinosaur. sourasaurus in 2013.
Researchers from Mansou- Sallam said he and a group
ra University in the coun- of doctoral and master’s
try’s Nile Delta discovered degree students were
the new species of long- heading to give a lecture
necked herbivore, which at a local university when
is around the size of a city they stumbled on a desert
bus, and it could be just road with the appropriate
the tip of the sand dune for geological outcroppings
other desert dinosaur dis- that they hadn’t noticed
coveries. before. The next morning,
“As in any ecosystem, if we the team returned to sur-
went to the jungle we’ll find vey it, covering an area of
a lion and a giraffe. So we several kilometers. It wasn’t
found the giraffe, where’s long after they started that
the lion?” said Hesham Sal- one of the students called
lam, leader of the excava- In this Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 photo, Hesham Sallam, head of Mansoura university’s Center for him on the phone, saying
tion team and head of the Vertebrate Paleontology, displays bones of a Cretaceous period dinosaur in Mansoura, Egypt. that he should come see
university’s Center for Ver- Associated Press the number of bones she’d
tebrate Paleontology. late Mesozoic period. That later lost in Allied bomb- tons and over 30 meters found.
Sallam, along with four is, previous theories were ing of the Munich Museum (33 yards) long. Sallam said he knew from
Egyptian and five Ameri- that Africa’s dinosaurs dur- during World War II. The Mansourasaurus’ small- the first small piece of fossil
can researchers, authored ing that time existed as if Sallam said researchers er size is more typical of the he was shown that it was a
an article in the journal on an island and devel- don’t know how Man- Mesozoic era, when di- big deal.
“Nature Ecology & Evolu- oped independently from sourasaurus lived and died, nosaurs’ time was running “When I first saw it I told
tion” published Jan. 29 an- their northern cousins. except for the fact that it out, geologically speak- them, if this comes out as I
nouncing the discovery. But Mansourasaurus’ fossil- was a plant eater. There’s ing, according to Sallam. expect, your names will go
Experts say the find is a ized skeletal remains sug- no indication whether it With a long neck and tail, down in history,” he told his
landmark one that could gest an anatomy not very lived alone or in a herd. his torso would’ve been students.
shed light on a particularly different from those discov- The bones do bear resem- similar to that of an African There is now some hope
obscure period of history ered in Europe from the blance to another dino- elephant and measuring the discovery could bring
for the African continent, same period, an indication saur discovery in Egypt, tip-to-tale over 10 meters more funding for the pale-
roughly the 30 million years that a land connection be- that of the Paralititan (11 yards) and weighing ontology field in Egypt and
before dinosaurs went ex- tween Africa and its north- Stromeri, excavated by an several tons. financing for ongoing stud-
tinct, between 70 and 80 ern neighbor may have American team from the Egypt’s Western Desert ies, Sallam said. But he said
million years ago. existed. University of Pennsylvania, would have more closely he’s most proud of mak-
Named “Mansourasaurus While Egypt has a long his- whose findings were pub- resembled a coastal jun- ing science real for people
Shahinae” after the team’s tory of archaeology, pale- lished in 2001. But only in so gle during the dinosaur’s who otherwise aren’t ex-
university and for one of ontology has not enjoyed much as both were long- lifetime, with half of what posed to it as much.
the paleontology depart- the same popularity — or necked herbivores graz- is the country today under “I mean, we’ve made the
ment’s founders, the find had the same success. ers. The Paralititan Stromeri water. average Egyptian man, or
is the only dinosaur from In 1911, the German pale- is believed to have been Though finding a dinosaur the Arab man, talk about
that period to have been ontologist Ernst Stromer led among the largest known bone in a vast desert may dinosaurs,” he said.q
discovered in Africa, and it an exhibition to the oasis animals, weighing in at 75 seem akin to a needle in
may even be an undiscov- of Bahriya, also in Egypt’s
ered genus. Western Desert. There, he
In the article the authors discovered four species
say the team’s findings of dinosaurs, including a
“counter hypotheses that predatory type known as
dinosaur faunas of the Af- the Spinosaurus, all from
rican mainland were com- the Cretaceous period.
pletely isolated” during the But all of his findings were