Understanding The Latest Dinosaur Discovery

A University of Florida researcher helped discover a new dinosaur species in the middle of the Sahara desert. The announcement of the Dino discovery was released in February. The Spinosaurus remains were first found in 2019 on a prospecting trip. Researchers returned in 2022 to gather the specimen, and then it took several years to study the findings. It is believed to be 95 million years old, and the second species of Spinosaurus. Paleontologists say unearthing this new species of dinosaur is super exciting. We are joined now by paleontologist Doctor Stephanie Baumgartner to talk more about dinosaurs. Thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you for having me. Can you tell me how and what led up to you actually going out to the Sahara Desert for this incredible discovery that we're going to learn about today? So in 2019, we've discovered the Spinosaurus, the new Spinosaurus species. And then we came back in 2022 for a three month expedition, Tunisia. And we collected so many different things. In particular this the specimen that originally we thought maybe it's something interesting. And then as we kept digging it up, it was it was really something cool. How did it feel when you actually realized what you had? This is an amazing discovery. It felt really incredible because you don't see something like that all the time, and it's a lot of the things that we find in the field. It's the first time somebody has seen that, like the first time in the world that, that a human has looked at this. So it's really it's a really incredible feeling to to discover new things and to realize this is going to change what we know about dinosaurs and the animals that have existed on this planet. Can you explain what you discovered? For those who don't understand about this species of Spinosaurus? So this particular species, it has a big, crust on its head. It sticks out. And, I've called it the unicorn, but it's it's, a very interesting, ornamentation on its head that the previous species that we know of does not have. And the other very interesting thing to me is that the species is found 500 to 1000km inland of where, compared to where the paleo coastline is. So it's not, by the marine waters, like previous Spinosaurus fossils have been found. It's it's much further inland. And that's kind of interesting to think about. Can you talk about why it's so important for us to understand dinosaurs now, in this age that we live in? Why is this work important? So learning about dinosaurs nowadays is one of those things that it seems very superficial and trivial. But the the things we can learn about dinosaurs expands our knowledge of how animals in general can look or work. You can't. Looking at modern day animals, what we have right now, we don't see things like sauropods. We don't see things like Tyrannosaurus rex. We don't see things like Spinosaurus. Spinosaurus is one of those things that's a very unique one time thing. Maybe we have a little basilisk lizard with a little bit of a crest on it, or maybe weight on its back, or sail, but it's a it's a very small animal. It's nothing the size of Spinosaurus. So it's it shows us the possibilities that biology is able to achieve. And in terms of adaptations for life on Earth. What are some misconceptions that you could clear up for people that they might have about dinosaurs? Common misconceptions. So dinosaurs, they're the very they're very charismatic. And we've been learning a lot about, you know, how they're behaving, how they're thinking a little bit, we can use CT scans to study their brains and determine these guys are really good at spelling. These guys have a lot of, regions for processing information, like, sight. So we can learn a lot about how they're, operating a little bit more, but they're probably not the slow and stupid animals that has been historically shown. They're they're they're pretty. They're pretty smart. There's a lot of very fast ones. And they're they're pretty cool. They are so fascinating. And there is a high level of interest in dinosaurs in the public. Yeah. I mean, I come to the scene of the paleontology as a kid who loved dinosaurs and never grew out of it. So it's it's one of those things that has united people across, whatever different fields I've helped teach classes where about dinosaurs, where there'd be students from econ majors, math majors, pre-med, just all sorts of different fields united because they're interested in dinosaurs. And they thought it was a fun class. So it's it's a very fun uniting topic to study. I know a lot of little children grow up dreaming of working with dinosaurs. I have two kids myself and you are living their dream because a lot there's a lot of interest, but you are actually doing it. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and about your discovery today. Thank you, Doctor Baumgartner. Thank you.