A fossilised dinosaur bone from Antarctica has been discovered in a drawer at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum. The specimen, a fragment of a vertebrae from a plesiosaur, was mislabelled as a rock for decades. Researchers stumbled upon it during a routine audit of the collection.
The bone was originally collected by Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition (1910–1913). It is the first dinosaur bone ever found in Antarctica. The discovery has reshuffled the deck on polar palaeontology.
'It was sitting there all along,' said Dr. Susannah Maidment, a senior curator. 'This changes our understanding of Antarctic ecosystems.
' The bone dates from the Cretaceous period. Further analysis could reveal new insights into how dinosaurs adapted to extreme environments. Political implications?
Minimal. But for scientists, it is a quiet coup. The specimen will now be formally catalogued and studied.
Not bad for a drawer in Cambridge.
