CNN: New Type of Dinosaur Unearthed in Antarctic

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

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New Type of Dinosaur Unearthed in Antarctic
 Reuters               20-JUL-99

 BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Fossils from a newly discovered land-roving
dinosaur adapted to a temperate climate have been unearthed on an
Antarctic island near the tip of South America in what experts are
calling a rare find. 

The shin and splint bones and part of the thigh bone of a 12-foot
(four-metre) long biped herbivore were discovered in February on the
rocky beach of James Ross Island, 30 miles (50 km) 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
Tuesday. 

The plant-eating member of the Iguanodon genus, a type of dinosaur first
discovered in Britain, had four limbs, a long tail, 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. 

Prior to 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," hadrosaur expedition leader Jim Martin, of the South Dakota
museum, 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. 
            

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