Embargoed until 2:00 P.M., EDT
NSF PR 01-61 - August 1, 2001
Media contact:
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Cheryl Dybas
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(703) 292-8070
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cdybas@nsf.gov
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Program contact:
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Rich Lane
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(703) 292-8551
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hlane@nsf.gov
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New Long-Necked Dinosaur Discovered in Madagascar
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The skull bones and head of Rapetosaurus
as it may have looked in life.
A larger
version is here.
Images courtesy: Mark Hallett/State University
of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.
Reconstruction of the skeleton of Rapetosaurus,
with body outline.
A
larger version is here.
Images courtesy: Mark Hallett/State University
of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. |
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The fossilized remains of a new, nearly complete long-necked
sauropod dinosaur were recently unearthed on the island
of Madagascar. The discovery was announced today in
the journal Nature by National Science Foundation
(NSF)-funded scientists from State University of New
York (SUNY), Stony Brook and the Science Museum of
Minnesota.
"The discovery of this dinosaur is particularly exciting
because it confirms a close relationship between the
titanosaurs and brachiosaurs, something that could
only be surmised previously," says Rich Lane, program
director in NSF's division of earth sciences, which
funded the research. "The prolific northern Madagascar
dinosaur sites uncovered by the team of scientists
continue to shed new and exciting light on Mesozoic
reptiles."
The new plant-eating sauropod ("Brontosaurus"-like)
dinosaur was discovered in 1995 in northwestern Madgascar,
near the port city of Mahajanga, by a field crew from
the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook
and the Universite d'Antananarivo. The specimens found
by the team include an adult skull and a nearly complete
juvenile skull and skeleton. The scientists, Catherine
Forster of Stony Brook and Kristina Curry Rogers of
the Science Museum of Minnesota, named the new dinosaur
Rapetosaurus krausei (RaPAY-to-SORE-us KRAUSE-eye).
Rapetosaurus lived near the end of the dinosaur
age, approximately 70 million years ago in the Late
Cretaceous Period. An adult Rapetosaurus approached
50 feet in length, with a small head perched at the
end of an elongate neck, and a long, slender tail.
It walked on all fours.
Rapetosaurus belongs to a group of sauropod
dinosaurs called titanosaurs, the last family of sauropod
dinosaurs to evolve. They have been found all around
the world and are common in the southern hemisphere.
More than 30 kinds of titanosaurs are known, but none
have been described that are represented by complete
skulls and skeletons. In contrast, nearly every bone
in the body of Rapetosaurus is known. "What's
been particularly frustrating to paleontologists who
study these beasts is that we haven't had a clue what
a titanosaur skull looks like," says Curry Rogers.
"Rapetosaurus gives us our first view of a
titanosaur from head to tail."
Until now, the lack of crucial skull fossils associated
with complete skeletons has made figuring out how
titanosaur species are related to one another a daunting
task. The skull of Rapetosaurus shows that
its nostrils lay on the top of the skull rather than
in the front of the snout like a horse or a dog. While
this seems like a very odd arrangement, it is actually
similar to that found in the Diplodocus family of
sauropods. But Curry Rogers and Forster also discovered
that despite this similarity, the rest of the skull
and skeleton more closely resembles the Brachiosaurus-like
sauropods.
The discovery of the skull of Rapetosaurus showed
Curry Rogers and Forster that two enigmatic sauropods
from Mongolia (Nemegtosaurus and Quaesitosaurus)
are actually titanosaurs, and not, as theorized, more
closely related to other sauropod families. Rapetosaurus
was key in this resolution, since it provides both
a skull and skeleton for comparing titanosaurs (previously
only known from skeletons) to these two Mongolian
dinosaurs (known only from skulls).
Funding for the Madagascar project was also provided
by the National Geographic Society, with additional
support from The Dinosaur Society and the Field Museum
of Natural History, Chicago.
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