A fossil specimen discovered on James Ross Island in 1985 has been identified as the first dinosaur bone ever found in Antarctica. The specimen was collected by a research team during an Antarctic expedition but remained unidentified and stored in a drawer within the British Antarctic Survey’s geology collection in Cambridge for four decades.
The fossil was recently examined by Dr Mark Evans, the collections manager at BAS, who recognized its distinctive characteristics. He subsequently consulted Prof Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum, who confirmed the specimen as a tail vertebra from a Titanosaur. Barrett noted that the bone’s unique combination of features—a hollow on one end and a rounded bump on the other—is distinctive to this dinosaur group. Based on the size of the vertebra, researchers estimate the animal measured approximately 23 feet in length.
Titanosaurs represent a group of four-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs characterized by long necks and tails, with more than 100 species identified worldwide. The largest members of this group exceeded 115 feet in length and weighed around 60 tonnes. The Antarctic specimen may have been either a juvenile or a notably small adult, which would have been unusual for the group.
The dinosaur inhabited Antarctica approximately 82 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period, when the continent featured forests and vegetation rather than its current ice-covered landscape. The discovery provides valuable insights into prehistoric life in this remote region, as other dinosaur fossils have been found in Antarctica since 1985, though remains uncommon due to the challenging conditions for paleontologists working beneath the ice. The research has been published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
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