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LAS VEGAS — It ’s official , long - necked sauropod dinosaur once roamed every continent on Earth — including now - frigid Antarctica .
The discovery of a single sauropod vertebra on James Ross Island in Antarctica reveals that these behemoths , which admit Diplodocus , Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus , lived on the continent in the upper Cretaceous Period about 100 million yr ago .
The researchers know the bone belonged to a type of sauropod, though they aren’t sure of the genus. Here in this illustration, a sauropod called Brontomerus protects her baby from a predator.
" Sauropodswere found all around the world , except Antarctica , " aver study research worker Ariana Paulina Carabajal , a fossilist at the Carmen Funes Municipal Museum in Plaza Huincul , Argentina . " Until now . "
Paulina Carabajal reported the find Nov. 3 here at the one-year meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology .
fossil at the South Pole
Paulina Carabajal and her colleague are n’t the first to chance adinosaur in Antarctica . Paleontologists turn up an ankylosaurus bone in 1986 , and since then , there have been other dinosaur specimens , including duck’s egg - billed dinosaur . even so , the continent has n’t been as fertile a fossil - hunting ground as other regions . [ Image Gallery : Dinosaur Fossils ]
" There are probably a lot of dinosaurs in Antarctica , but we have n’t found them yet , because it ’s very difficult to go to Antarctica and then it ’s very hard to find [ fossils ] , " Paulina Carabajal recount LiveScience . " And , of course , a lot of the continent iscovered in ice . "
Even in the summer , when ice and coke retreat in some coastal areas , finding fossils is difficult , she said . Daily cycles of freezing and dethaw cranny bones to pieces , so " you will never detect a complete bone , " Paulina Carabajal said . And after about 8 inches ( 20 centimeters ) of digging , you pass into the permafrost , which is too hard to excavate without wait for it to melt for a day or two .
Paulina Carabajal and two workfellow fly to James Ross Island by eggbeater , which dropped them off with their camping equipment .
" When the helicopter leaves you there just with boxes and goes back to the base … you experience like ‘ Ooh , what am I doing here ? ’ " Paulina Carabajal said .
But she soon fell in love with the passive , chilly island , she aver , and the radical began surveying for fossils . They found a number of marine reptile , Pisces the Fishes and invertebrates , Paulina Carabajal said , but no dinosaurs until the end of their stop , when they go to the site where the first Antarctic ankylosaur was found . There , at the surface , they found a single broken sauropod vertebra .
" We can not do much with only a vertebra , so we do n’t know the genus or species , " Paulina Carabajal said . " But we know it ’s a titanosaurian , it ’s a kind of sauropod that ’s very unwashed in South America . "
Long - tailed , long - make out titanosaurs may have weighed more than 100 tons . They were herbivores , armored withtough , beadlike scale .
Ancient Antarctica
When the sauropod dinosaur roamed the Earth , Antarctica was connected to South America and Australia , so sauropod dinosaur could have simply walk from present - day continent to present - solar day continent , Paulina Carabajal said . The land mass of Antarctica itself was not as far south as it is today , so the continentwould have been warmer , she said , although far from balmy .
" It was ardent enough for these fauna to exist there , " she say .
Beyond read these longsighted - necks lumbered across every continent , the find may be useful for revealing where and how the beast journey , Paulina Carabajal say . No one yet knowshow sauropods spreadacross the globe .
" It will be interesting , with time , with more information , to lie with how these dinosaur propagate around the world using Antarctica like a bridge , " she said .
