Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: lorn bog Obama here. The finding of a new dinosaur
Speaker 1: species is always cause for celebration. To dino enthusiasts, memorizing
Speaker 1: new names is a favorite pastime. Just ask some parents,
Speaker 1: including nine Sorry about that phase, guys. And on an
Speaker 1: academic level, recently discovered species can help us better understand
Speaker 1: the story of dinosaurian evolution. Occasionally, they provide clues to
Speaker 1: other mysteries as well. On januaryeen, the scientific journal Nature
Speaker 1: published a study announcing that the remains of a previously
Speaker 1: unknown dinosaur had been found in Egypt, long necked herbivore.
Speaker 1: The beast has been dubbed Mansurasaurus Shahine. Size Wise, it
Speaker 1: wasn't too impressive, but the discovery still has a lot
Speaker 1: of scientists very excited. That's because, by virtue of its
Speaker 1: age and anatomy, Mansursaurus might settle a debate about where
Speaker 1: the African continent was located on Earth when the non
Speaker 1: avian dinosaurs died out. Alfred Wagner was a meteorologist who
Speaker 1: in nine in fifteen made the case for a theory
Speaker 1: he called continental drift. This is the idea that the
Speaker 1: continents gradually move across Earth's surface as time goes by,
Speaker 1: and he was right. We now know that, due to
Speaker 1: plate tectonics, the continents are indeed moving along at a
Speaker 1: steady pace, and a century is worth of research has
Speaker 1: allowed geologists to piece together the travel histories of the
Speaker 1: major land masses. For instance, scientists have figured out that
Speaker 1: after having been separated for tens of millions of years,
Speaker 1: South and North America were reconnected by the Central American
Speaker 1: land Bridge around three point five million years ago. Still,
Speaker 1: our knowledge does contain some gaps. Consider Africa. Roughly three
Speaker 1: hundred million years ago, it was part of the super
Speaker 1: continent Pangaea. This megaaland mass started to break apart about
Speaker 1: a hundred million years later, but we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: what Africa was doing during certain stages of this process.
Speaker 1: The Cretaceous period lasted from a hundred and forty five
Speaker 1: to sixty six million years ago. Famously, it ended with
Speaker 1: a mass extinction that wiped out all dinosaurs excluding birds.
Speaker 1: We've uncovered numerous African dinal fossils from the early Cretaceous period,
Speaker 1: including bones that represent the weird fin backed carnivor Spinosaurus However,
Speaker 1: late Cretaceous material from Africa is awfully scarce. One co
Speaker 1: author of the Nature study is Ohio University paleontologist Patrick O'Connor.
Speaker 1: He said via email, the Late Cretaceous fossil record is
Speaker 1: quite robust in some parts of the world, like South America, Madagascar,
Speaker 1: and North America, But by comparison, the Late Cretaceous fossil record,
Speaker 1: and particularly that of the end of the Late Cretaceous
Speaker 1: period eight two sixty six million years ago from continental
Speaker 1: Africa is a virtual blank slate. That's a problem for
Speaker 1: people who studied continental drift. Fossil evidence is critical when
Speaker 1: it comes to theorizing about when, where, and how the
Speaker 1: continents emerged or separated. If you find similar looking fossil
Speaker 1: remains from the same geologic time on two separate continents,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that those land masses were linked
Speaker 1: together at some point in the past. Historically, we haven't
Speaker 1: been able to compare Africa's Late Cretaceous fossil record with
Speaker 1: that of other continents. As O'Connor pointed out, they're simple.
Speaker 1: Aren't many African fossils that date back to this time.
Speaker 1: The information gap has sparked some debate. Without the Late
Speaker 1: Cretaceous fossils to work with, paleontologists could only speculate about
Speaker 1: whether Africa was still connected to South America or Eurasia
Speaker 1: back then. Mansur Sourus offers a badly needed breakthrough. Its
Speaker 1: remains were first spotted during a December expedition into western
Speaker 1: Egypt Stahla Oasis. The campaign was spearheaded by Hashem Salem,
Speaker 1: a paleontologist at Mansura University in Egypt's Nile Delta. We
Speaker 1: spoke with study co author Eric Gorskak via email. He
Speaker 1: said in early Feen the team came back and started
Speaker 1: the excavation that would last the next three weeks. In total,
Speaker 1: nineteen field jackets that's plaster coverings placed over and around fossils,
Speaker 1: and many isolated bone fragments were collected. Named in honor
Speaker 1: of Mansur University, Mansursaurus Shahine was a long necked dinosaur
Speaker 1: or sapod. More specifically, it was a titanosaur, a group
Speaker 1: of Cretaceous sauropods whose ranks included some of the biggest
Speaker 1: animals to ever walk the Earth. One species, Argentinosaurus wink
Speaker 1: A lensis, may have weighed over seventy seven tons or
Speaker 1: seventy metric tons. Like many other titanosaurs, mens Oursaurus had
Speaker 1: bony knobs embedded in its skin. However, unlike many of
Speaker 1: its cousins, this creature was no true behemoth. A full
Speaker 1: grown men's our Soaurus would have been around thirty three
Speaker 1: feet that's ten meters long and weighed just five point
Speaker 1: five tons or five metric tons. Because it was found
Speaker 1: in late Cretaceous rock, mens our Soaurus is hugely important
Speaker 1: knowing this salmonous. Team compared the animal's bones with those
Speaker 1: of contemporary titanosaurs from South America and Eurasia. It turns
Speaker 1: out that anatomically speaking, men's our soaurs bore a closer
Speaker 1: resemblance to the Eurasian titanosaurs. In O'Connor's words, the finding
Speaker 1: points to some geographical connection between Africa and Eurasia for
Speaker 1: at least some point of the Latest Cretaceous. While the
Speaker 1: existence of Man's our Soaurus does strongly indicate that large
Speaker 1: animals like titanosaurs could travel from Eurasia to Africa back then,
Speaker 1: O'Connor says scientists need more fossils to confirm this hypothesis. Also,
Speaker 1: right now, it's impossible to say whether there was a
Speaker 1: direct land bridge between the two continents. High sea levels
Speaker 1: at the time flooded parts of Europe and northern Africa,
Speaker 1: turning the region into a system of islands. So maybe
Speaker 1: instead of walking from one continent to the other, soropods
Speaker 1: like men's our soaurus made the journey via island hopping.
Speaker 1: The timing and extent of islands and land bridges is
Speaker 1: currently unknown, but scientists are on the case. O'Connor says
Speaker 1: that Salam and his students have great ambitions for studying
Speaker 1: other fossils from Africa's Late Cretaceous deposits. Furthermore, O'Connor himself has,
Speaker 1: as he said, ongoing projects with other colleagues exploring similar
Speaker 1: aged rocks in Tanzania, Madagascar, and Antarctica. There are many
Speaker 1: more exciting discoveries on the horizon, and we can't wait
Speaker 1: to read about them. Today's episode was written by Mark
Speaker 1: Mancini and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other dynamite topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.