Palaeontologists have now described just how fortuitous the discovery of the first giant Antarctic dinosaur was.
As it set foot on Antarctic soil – which, 80 million years ago, was not yet frozen as it is today – the ground shook. No wonder – this creature was apparently seven metres long and weighed around two tonnes. Despite its titanic size, this titanosaur was most likely still just a juvenile; as an adult, it could have measured up to thirty metres.
Its fossil – specifically, a single vertebra – was discovered as far back as 1985 by British scientists. However, according to a new study published in the journal *Paleontologica Polonica*, they had grossly underestimated its significance. They found it on James Ross Island and thought it was a fragment of some kind of marine reptile. They had no idea that they were holding a piece of a dinosaur – in fact, the very first dinosaur ever discovered in Antarctica. And so they placed the fossil in the storeroom at the Natural History Museum in London, where it lay largely unnoticed for decades.
During the time that dust was settling on the vertebra, Antarctica was studied in detail and scientists did indeed find dinosaur tracks there (first in the late 1990s) – but far fewer than is generally believed – to date, only twelve species of these prehistoric creatures have been discovered there, making Antarctica the continent with the fewest dinosaurs.
However, a new analysis of a bone discovered long ago has now revealed another inhabitant of this continent. “Believe it or not, this is the first dinosaur remains ever discovered in Antarctica,” commented palaeontologist Paul Barrett, who succeeded in identifying the fossil. “We overlooked it because, in my view, it had been misidentified due to the challenging field conditions, but it is a sauropod and is only the second sauropod bone ever found on the entire continent.” Sauropods are giant herbivorous dinosaurs characterised by their massive bodies and small heads.
Scientists have described the longest dinosaur in South-East Asia. It is larger than a Tyrannosaurus (in Czech)
According to him, the bone is too incomplete for scientists to determine which species it came from. However, based on its shape and size, they estimate that the creature belonged to the titanosaur group and that it was probably six to seven metres long. That would be very small for a titanosaur, which would suggest that it was merely a juvenile. But this cannot be verified with 100 per cent certainty.
During the Late Cretaceous period, when the dinosaur described above lived, Antarctica was not yet isolated – it was still connected to the southern tip of South America. It was covered in temperate forests rich in trees, dominated by ferns, palms and conifers. Scientists compare its appearance to that of present-day Tasmania.
A photographer in the Alps stumbled upon the Valley of the Dinosaurs, with thousands of footprints (in Czech)
Given that Antarctica lies so far south, there were also dramatic fluctuations in the length of daylight there, meaning that, just as today, twilight prevailed for many months during the winter. Even so, life found a way to thrive under these conditions. The forests were home to small herbivorous dinosaurs, such as Morrosaurus, as well as massive, armoured ankylosaurs, such as Antarctopelta, and dangerous predators, such as Imperobator. However, there were no traces of giant sauropods – with the exception of a single find.
That is why the discovery of the sauropod bone described here is of exceptional significance, as it points to the hitherto unknown (pre)history of Antarctica. It most closely resembles a dinosaur from South America called Muyelensaurus, but it is not possible to say with certainty whether it is the same species or merely a close relative.
Link to the study (in English)
An article written by Tomáš Karlík (CT), initially published on 1 July 2026, 14:45 (CEST)