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Planet Dinosaur

As a new BBC TV series brings dinosaurs back to life, Cavan Scott reveals how luck played a part in the discovery of many of its stars
 



When news breaks of the discovery of a new species of dinosaurs, you might think its scientists who have made the find after searching for fossils. But the reality is that, nine times out of 10, the greatest finds have been down to chance. Take the 2005 discovery of Gigantoraptor erlianensis, a beaked colossus that is one of the bizarre looking stars of Planet Dinosaur – a six-part BBC series starting this month. Using state-of-the-art computer graphics, the series will bring to life dinosaurs whose remains have been discovered in the past decade. 

Unexpected find

Standing over 3m high at the hip, Gigantoraptor erlianensis is the biggest bird-like dinosaur ever unearthed. Yet its discoverer, Dr Xing Xu of Beijing’s Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, wasn’t even looking for it at the time. In fact he was recording a documentary in the Gobi desert, Inner Mongolia.

“The discovery was a total accident,” says Xu. “The production team were filming myself and a geologist digging out what we thought were sauropod bones when I realised the fossils were something else entirely.”

Gigantoraptor, as the beast was dubbed, was an oviraptorid, and its size was staggering. Here was a creature that was probably about 8m long, and if the bone analysis was anything to go by, it was only about 11 years old when it died. Who

Forgotten fossils

If fate has played a part in recent dinosaur discoveries, it’s also thrown up a few hindrances. Spinosaurus, the largest land-based carnivore ever to walk the earth, became famous 10 years ago thanks to Jurassic Park III, but it was discovered nearly 100 years ago, so why hadn’t we heard of this beast before?

German aristocrat and palaeontologist Ernst Stromer discovered the first Spinosaurus remains during an expedition to Egypt in 1912 and his finds were displayed in Munich three years later. Unfortunatley, an RAF air raid in April 1944 reduced the remains to dust. Stromer insisted the Spinosaurus would have been bigger than T-Rex but it looked like nobody would ever know for sure: at least, for a while.

“No other Spinosaurus remains were discovered until 1975.” Explains Dr Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Civic Natural History Museum in Milan. “A partial skull was found in Morocco, but it remained in a private collection for 27 years.”

Realising the importance of the specimen, Dal Sasso’s team finally obtained the fossil and found out Stromer had been right all along.

So while any of us can unearth a fossil, it takes dedicated scientists to see beyond the rock, and unlock the secrets of Planet Dinosaur and its monstrous inhabitants.   

Images: BBC/Jellyfish X3

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