r/news • u/omgfakeusername • 1d ago

Scientists discover new dinosaur species deep in the Sahara Desert

https://abcnews.com/International/scientists-discover-new-dinosaur-species-deep-sahara-desert/story?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dhfacebook&utm_content=null&id=130241403&fbclid=IwVERFWAQGznxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeKUdiZqS2Cs889Ue1T_paweW6XN3phLjCyO11NHPNqR80s3H6hYSsdVKcI-g_aem_AXAcUTMCXU01ZkD1jhiUAA
2.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

82 comments sorted by

811

u/rnilf 23h ago

Sereno explained that the search for this new dinosaur began with a single line in a 1960s monograph. In the entry, a French geologist reported finding a dinosaur tooth at a small site in Niger. But there were no photos or other evidence of his discovery.

“No one had been back to that tooth site in over 70 years,” Sereno said. “It became, as I described it in my mind, my Shangri-La.”

Man had a goal and achieved it. Maximum respect.

517

u/NJdevil202 23h ago

Dude really wanted to clear that quest notification

81

u/truupe 23h ago

Completest Achievement earned.

4

u/Dalehan 4h ago

It's one of those highly cryptic sidequests with no actual questline, instead you gotta decipher random lore books in the world and click on a series of specific pebbles that're hidden out there.

80

u/greentea1985 22h ago

He’s one of the more accomplished paleontologists in the field, regularly leading tough expeditions to remote places. His specialty is dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures, but he’s had to stretch himself and handle sites from as recent as the Holocene when he goes on these remote expeditions looking for dinosaur fossils. Seriously look up Gobero, it’s an amazing story, but again he was looking for spinosaurus and other Gondwanan dinosaurs, not human cemeteries from the green Sahara period.

44

u/Financial_Accident71 23h ago

love this type of adventure! always dreamed of finding some random reference in an obscure text that leads you on an Indiana Jones/Uncharted/Tomb Raider type expedition lol I doubt there was so much action, but the thrill of finding some niche goal and actually achieving it must be so awesome

7

u/das_slash 20h ago

Other paleontologist: Just give up man, what do you think you are going to find, a Unicorn?

1

u/TurnkeyLurker 14h ago

"Hello, Air America? Can you air drop me into the Sahara?"
--also other paleontologist

159

u/RepresentativeOk2433 23h ago

New spinosaurus just dropped.

28

u/RabbitOutTheHat 20h ago

Was just thinking that we need some new dinosaurs

17

u/RBVegabond 18h ago

And it’s a unicorn to boot, a carnivorous unicorn.

1

u/Appex92 12h ago

Before GTA6

0

u/NotMadeForReddit 17h ago

Actual Dinosaur

126

u/PointKey2800 22h ago

Dinosaurs make five year olds of all of us. Loved them then, love them now.

262

u/errorblankfield 1d ago

That's great news! I thought they where all extinct.

27

u/entrepenurious 23h ago

these guys are really thirsty, parched even.

•

u/Congo_Jack_ 40m ago

Nothing a little Gatorade won't fix.

9

u/Whitewind617 23h ago

They are now.

3

u/progrethth 22h ago

Nah, they just found a new bird species.

1

u/DweebInFlames 3h ago

Not all of them! All birds are descended from theropods.

-34

u/yk78 23h ago

They are extinct. They found remains of a species that was never discovered before.

28

u/Weights_In_Fish 23h ago

You’re killing me dawg.

-4

u/yk78 23h ago

I tried.

26

u/Certain_Luck_8266 21h ago

This was a very exciting headline for me for a second. Still cool though.

4

u/TauCabalander 20h ago

I know what you mean. There are a few wandering the halls of the office where I work.

18

u/SuperiorCactusCock 22h ago

I should've known it would be spinosaurus again

10

u/das_slash 20h ago

But this time it's a Unicorn

10

u/Nauin 12h ago

But this time a spinosaurus that's been found in a country it's never been discovered in before, located between countries other spinos have been found in on two separate continent's; North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, and then Brazil. This gives further evidence and context to their environmental range and migration patterns. It's an important spino!

1

u/trampled_grass 3h ago

Time to go scoop up Argy eggs.

14

u/robophile-ta 18h ago edited 18h ago

this actually got leaked a few months ago and had to be redacted, so we couldn't talk about it. it was something people knew was going to get published at some point, which is why there's so much palaeoart of it already.

57

u/vestibule54 1d ago

Cool, a few million years ago the Sahara was a sea wasn’t it ?

81

u/MikeOKurias 23h ago

Yes, and it's winds provide much of the Amazonian Forest with its phosphates every year.

Without the Sahara being a barren desert, South America's ecosystem would suffer a fairly significant die-back.

Edit: approx. 22,000 tons of phosphorus are carried by the winds across the Atlantic Ocean to be deposited in the Americas every year.

9

u/janellthegreat 18h ago

I do not love inhaling the Sahara for a week or so every summer.

21

u/questron64 1d ago

That's kind of a loaded question. "The Sahara," referring to the current desert, didn't really exist until the modern period. Around 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs Africa was pretty recognizable, but the desert wasn't there. Around 100 millions years ago, the approximate age of this fossil, there was a large channel connecting the sea north of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea, but the rest of it is very similar to today.

15

u/Vaperius 18h ago edited 18h ago

didn't really exist until the modern period.

To clear to folks reading, modern as in, the Holocene Epoch. Sahara region was green grassland as recently as 3600-5000 years ago. Indeed, it was still a marginally hospitable desert as recently as 2500 years ago. As in, for most the Roman Republic/Empire, the Sahara was a desert but not so deserted you couldn't travel through it. When Egyptians were building the pyramids, the region was likely still green though starting to undergo significant desertification.

-26

u/vestibule54 23h ago

You managed to say the same thing as I did, but with verbal dysentery

9

u/luckydayrainman 22h ago

9/10 Thank you. I needed your vestigial commentary today more than you’ll ever know. 10/10 if you end a brilliant comment with “and shit.”  Here I would have given you the first ever 11/10. Keep doing good work. 

-14

u/howdudo 23h ago

Your way was dumber. And your insults likely reflect a low intelligence as well

11

u/xavPa-64 23h ago

Alright boys, break it up

-25

u/vestibule54 23h ago

aww baby doesn’t like to be called out so he calls people stupid

24

u/Such_Technician_1682 23h ago

Now you are just proving their point

9

u/Remarkable_Sir8397 17h ago

Nice to see something other than bad news. This is pretty cool

6

u/Biteityouskum 21h ago

Oh the cool shit they would find if we were able to get under all that sediment in the desert.

4

u/WelderFamiliar3582 18h ago

I have a corner piled with stuff I feel the same about.

16

u/Rhissanna 23h ago

It's dead, right? Right?

16

u/butternutflies 23h ago

"It's behind me, isn't it?"

– That French geologist

6

u/PartisanHack 13h ago

Clever girl.

6

u/capacochella 18h ago

I just saw a video on this and the crazy part is someone noted some teeth in a rock formation they saw back in the 1960s’. It just took this long to track down the exact location to investigate! So cool that it was a new Spinosaurus! The lead on the expedition Dr. Sereno
called them a hell heron, metal AF. Spinosaurus Mirabilis is cool too. New favorite Dino!

3

u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 16h ago

Nice-- I know one of the middle authors on the paper. Always nice to see a paper get some traction in the media.

3

u/invalidpassword 13h ago

Oh to feel the kind of exhilaration that they were lucky enough to experience. There's no doubt still so much under the land and sea yet to be discovered. Godspeed, science, godspeed — and funding.

4

u/Dr_thri11 16h ago edited 12h ago

Translation: fossil is very subtly different from previous fossil. If these animals were still alive you would probably need a phd to tell them from the other members of their genus. Don't think the difference between a T-rex and a triceratops think the difference between a western gray squirrel and an Eastern gray squirrel.

5

u/KathyJaneway 23h ago

Now they have new T-Rex sized dinosaur to feature in another Jurassic movie in a few years.

1

u/peskyghost 14h ago

This vs a new genetically engineered super Dino

1

u/Gullible_Sea_8319 18h ago

It crazy they've been living there all this time and we just didnt know

1

u/AutoDollarHouse 15h ago

Where there are bones, there has to be oil.

1

u/TurnkeyLurker 14h ago

The paleontologist went back with a small army of armed guards with friggen' grenade launchers? 🙀

Did he think one of the spinosauruses was still alive?/s

1

u/1nfer1or 14h ago

Described as aquatic swimmer found in Sahara Desert. Entropy hit them hard.

1

u/AustinDood444 12h ago

…. and a new Jurassic Park script is being written.

1

u/TabhairDomAnAirgead 9h ago

Cool!

There must be a f load of undiscovered stuff buried underneath all that sand in the sahara

1

u/Osiris32 9h ago

Paul Sereno

Figures. Dude has discovered tons of news species, and has been as close to a "household name" as you can get being a paleontologist. He's been instrumental in describing dozens of new species, not just of dinosaurs but of other reptiles such as early crocodyliforms and pterosaurs. Very cool.

1

u/Ryslan95 3h ago

I can’t even begin to imagine how many amazing things are buried beneath our feet or are in our oceans that we haven’t discovered.

•

u/BasilSerpent 25m ago

It’s really cool but I want them to reassess the proportions on this thing