That is Half Two of a weblog about these expeditions – For Half One, comply with this hyperlink!
Visitor Writer – James Ormiston
Bristol Palaeontology MSci Graduate / Palaeo Artist
Mongolia’s historical underbelly had proved so productive that after suspending fieldwork for one 12 months, the Polish returned in 1967 for one more three 12 months stint. This was a smaller scale operation, like in 1963, aimed not at excavating however prospecting. They had been accompanied this time by just one member of the Mongolian group for every year, joined additionally by a automotive and driver. Returning to the Flaming Cliffs looking for Cretaceous mammals, this cluster of mini-expeditions turned out 20 mammal specimens, as many lizards and a crocodilian.
Within the months main as much as the historic 1969 touchdown of Apollo 11 on the dusty floor of the moon one other settlement was signed, organising two extra large-scale expeditions in 1970 and 1971. Now they had been battle-hardened and ready for the situations that awaited them, understanding that enduring these hardships had the potential to disclose but extra superb secrets and techniques from Mongolia’s distant previous.
Each expeditions had been to be led by Kielan-Jaworowska on the Polish aspect, and Barsbold on the Mongolian aspect (though he wouldn’t be part of them within the discipline, solely go to). Understanding full nicely the significance of sufficient transport, this time a number of further vans had been employed to work alongside the Polish and Romanian autos introduced with them. Apart from that, the expeditions had been organised in the identical approach as earlier than (one notable exception being that the Polish aspect lined all prices, moderately than splitting them). The Nemegt Basin and Flaming Cliffs remained their goal.
The Higher Nemegt beds produced a lot of attention-grabbing specimens throughout the two months spent there by the assigned group. But extra skeletons of Tarbosaurus had been discovered, together with one skeleton of one other acquainted dinosaur: Saurolophus angustirostris. This species was the second named of its genus, the primary being S. osborni found by Barnum Brown in 1911 on the opposite aspect of the Pacific. S. angustirostris had been discovered within the Nemegt Basin by the Russian-Mongolian expeditions of the post-war interval. After being named by Russian palaeontologist Anatoly Rozhdestvensky, it turned essentially the most generally discovered hadrosaur in Asia. Different finds included a brand new dome-headed dinosaur (pachycephalosaurid) comprising an entire cranium and a few of its post-cranial skeleton. The Decrease Nemegt beds had been additionally investigated, as Yefremov’s Russian group had thought few if any fossils had been to be present in them. Issues couldn’t have been farther from the case. Nearly 100 lizards had been discovered, extra specimens of Protoceratops, mammals, eggs and an ankylosaur. The group on the Flaming Cliffs made very related discoveries, and the expedition was wrapped up in October 1970.
As soon as once more, a lot of the gear remained in Ulaanbaatar by way of the winter, being topped up and renewed in April 1971. The expedition’s return to the Nemegt Basin noticed but extra specimens of lizards and mammals being recovered. Inside the basin, at a web site referred to as Khulsan, an unknown ankylosaur was found about 4 metres up a cliff aspect. Such a prize was price pursuing regardless of its inconvenient location, and so a troublesome excavation utilizing scaffolding to scale the cliff adopted. The expedition then moved again to Altan Ula, the place the sauropod skeleton had been discovered 1965. In 6 weeks they discovered but extra bones of Tarbosaurus, Saurolophus, varied ornithomimids, turtles and one other giant ankylosaur. Issues continued to proceed very nicely all through July, and in early August the group wrapped issues up in Altan Ula and continued to a web site to the west of the Flaming Cliffs; Toogreeg. Though it could be the ultimate location visited by the expedition, Toogreeg would go down in palaeontological historical past as the location of one of the vital fascinating fossil discoveries ever made.
Looking in a golden Cretaceous sandstone already plentiful with dinosaur eggs and bones, the expedition unearthed two dinosaur skeletons which gave the impression to be virtually interlocked with one another. The species concerned had been simply identifiable as acquainted locals: Protoceratops andrewsi and Velociraptor mongoliensis. However the important thing distinction right here was the state of their preservation. The pair had died while in bodily contact, with the Velociraptor greedy Protoceratops’ head. Though preliminary reporting of this discover was break up between theories of fight and drowning, the Polish account settled on the previous rationalization, and that has been the one to persist to at the present time. This snapshot of brutality within the pair’s closing moments painted an more and more vivid image because the specimen was ready and examined over the next years and a long time. It turned usually accepted that the struggle ended with each animals being buried in a collapsing sand dune. Some theorise (utilizing evaluation of sclerotic rings of the attention) that Velociraptor might have been nocturnal, and Protoceratops solely lively some hours of the day, so the incident may have occurred at twilight. The Velociraptor had seemingly managed to make use of its sickle-shaped toe claw to stab its prey’s neck, however had additionally suffered itself a damaged arm. Had Protoceratops’ laborious beak prompted the harm in retaliation earlier than their demise?
The “combating dinosaurs” fossil was a suitably spectacular bookend to a saga of intrepid expeditions by the Polish and Mongolian Academies of Science. Because the huge quantity of specimens had been picked by way of, described and catalogued, an increasing number of info new to science adopted. The sauropod skeleton discovered by the 1965 group was named in 1977 and is now considered associated to the titanosaurs, being named Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii. It stays the one different sauropod than Nemegtosaurus to be present in its formation. The large forelimbs discovered by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska remained a thriller for a while, and it wasn’t till the 21st Century that sufficient stays had been recovered (and repatriated from poachers) to say for sure what sort of theropod it was. Initially it was considered a carnosaur of some type (together with such carnivorous giants as Giganotosaurus). However after re-examination and the emergence of just about all different parts of the skeleton, Deinocheirus (“horrible hand”), because it was named, turned out to be a sail-backed type of early omnivorous ornithomimid.
One other new ornithomimid was named within the wake of the expedition in 1972; the enormous skeleton additionally found by Kielan-Jaworowska in 1964. Her colleague Halszka Osmólska, along with Roniewicz and Barsbold, named the 6 metre lengthy big Gallimimus (“rooster mimic”). It went on to turn out to be probably the greatest identified dinosaurs in widespread tradition, because of its temporary look working alongside Sam Neil in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Two new genera of ankylosaur had been named by group member Teresa Maryańska in 1977 as Saichania (Mongolian for “the attractive one) and Tarchia (after the Mongolian phrase for “mind” – “tarkhi”). Osmólska and Maryańska would additionally identify three new pachycephalosaurs (Homalocephale, Prenocephale and Tylocephale) from the expedition, and proceed an extended affiliation with engaged on and naming dinosaurs discovered within the area.
This is among the many profound legacies left by the Polish-Mongolian expeditions – it was one of many first cases of a palaeontological expedition with a powerful feminine presence. Even within the following a long time, palaeontology as a science struggled to shrug off the historic stereotype of bearded outdated males with shovels (vital because the discoveries by that demographic might have been). As with all science, it was, as demonstrated by Mary Anning’s lack of ability to hitch the Geological Society within the 19th Century, for a very long time the province of males and males alone. Not solely did the Polish expeditions embody a number of feminine researchers, however within the case of Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska it got here to be that some had been truly led by them. A lot of a very powerful discoveries had been made, described and printed by stated girls. Kielan-Jaworowska, Maryańska and Osmólska would go on to turn out to be famend and revered researchers. Osmólska has even had a number of genera and species named after her, similar to Halszkaraptor and Citipati osmolskae, and was included as editor of David Weishampel’s reference guide Dinosauria, together with contributing work on a chapter about oviraptorosaurs.
Mongolia has continued to be one thing of a Mecca for palaeontological expeditions, and that’s unlikely to alter, however because it turned extra well-known an rising downside started to come up: fossil poaching. UNESCO has marked the Gobi Desert for its near-unparalleled fossil discovery charge and high quality, however regardless of unauthorised fossil digging and sale being unlawful in Mongolia it has nonetheless occurred with alarming frequency. Deinocheirus, for instance, might have remained a thriller had been it not for different parts of its skeleton being intercepted on the non-public market. The one identified cranium had been from Mongolia to Japan to Germany, all in non-public fingers, earlier than a Belgian researcher was given a tip-off and it lastly discovered its technique to a museum. The remainder of the specimen had been left behind in Mongolia un-excavated and partly vandalised, just for palaeontologists to search out it after the very fact (private gadgets left by the poachers revealed their involvement). Evidently after the well-known sale of the T. rex specimen “SUE” within the Nineteen Nineties for over $8 million, fossil poachers knew that the larger the dinosaur, the larger the pay-out. Subsequently a specimen of Mongolia’s personal Tarbosaurus, aesthetically similar to T. rex, was caught beneath public sale within the U.S. in 2012 and an effort was made to return it. To the common purchaser, Tarbosaurus and T. rex little question look very related. However to anybody with a powerful curiosity within the discipline the mere identify of Tarbosaurus instantly tells you it’s from Mongolia, and due to this fact it will need to have been collected and exported illegally.
From then on many extra fossils had been repatriated again to Mongolia; that very same 12 months over 20 extra fossils had been caught, and as lately as 2016 tens of fossils have appeared and been reclaimed from U.S. public sale homes. With every fossil returned, not solely do the folks of Mongolia get a few of their prehistory again, but it surely units an instance for personal collectors to keep away from accepting extra finds from the nation.