Antarctica's First Dinosaur: BAS D.8621.24

Publication Info:

Transcript:

Paul M. Barrett et al, A titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Antarctica, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica (2026). DOI: 10.4202/app.01315.2025

The first dinosaur fossil ever found in Antarctica has been sitting in a collection for 40 years, unidentified, and that's changing. Meet BAS D.8621.24, which has now officially been described as a vertebra from a 20-23 foot long titanosaur!

Episode 300

Notes:

The first dinosaur fossil ever discovered in Antarctica was just described. Here's your most recent paleontology news almost daily or whenever I get around to it. So, some quick background knowledge for anybody who might want or need it. Antarctica is not just ice. There's an actual continent there with mountains and dirt and rock and everything you expect from a continent. But most of it, at least for the moment, is covered in snow and ice. But that's changing. Thanks to global warming, the ice is receding a little bit more every year, exposing a little bit more of the rock and dirt and making it accessible to paleontologists. Fossils from Antarctica are not a new thing. The first fossils that were found over 100 years ago, they were plant fossils. And then in the 1960s, the first vertebrate fossils were found. Then this vertebra was found in 1985, followed by a lot of dinosaur fossils. Whether you think it's a lot or not probably depends on how many you're expecting. But a decent number of dinosaur fossils have been found and described. But that vertebra, originally found in 1985, has been just kind of sitting in a museum collection ever since, undescribed at least until now. Officially named BASD.8621.25, it belongs to a titanosaur, a relative of one of the largest dinosaurs to ever live, one of the largest animals to ever live on our planet, period. That said, this vertebra doesn't belong to a giant. It belongs to an animal that was probably about 20 ft long, either a juvenile or possibly a species with island dwarfism. But this 20 to 23-ft titanosaur would have roamed the forests of Antarctica during the Cretaceous. And hopefully we'll be able to learn more about a specific species sometime soon. As usual, if you want more information, here's the source.