Complete Dinosaur Skeleton Found in Mongolia

The fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur closely related to the famous giant carnivorous Tyrannosaurus, unearthed in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in 2006 by Japanese and Mongolian scientists, is now presented by the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences as one of the most complete fossils of this species ever found. The skeleton is said to belong to a dinosaur known as Tarbosaurus, measuring about 2 meters in length, which walked the Earth some 70 million years ago.

The announcement of the discovery was made on Thursday, although the chunk of sandstone inside which the skeleton was found was retrieved from the Gobi Desert nearly two years ago during a joint research project between Japanese and Mongolian researchers.

"We were so lucky to have found remains that turned out to be a complete set of all the important parts," said Takuji Yokoyama, spokesman of the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences, one of the organizers of the project.

Following the two years of research, scientists found that the skeleton is that of a young Tarbosaurus that died at the age of five, and only lacked the bones of the neck and those found in the tip of the tail. It is not that often that scientists find complete fossils of young dinosaurs, since their skeletons are much easier to be destroyed by weather or other natural factors, such as predators.

The most important part of the discovery of this particular skeleton is that it provides unique insight into how dinosaurs grow. Fossils of adult Tarbosaurus' indicate that they can grow up to 12 meters in length, compared to the mere 2 meters of the newly found five-year-old. The study could not find sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion to the gender of the dinosaur, said Yokoyama on Thursday.

The joint research project between the two nations has been carrying out excavations in the Gobi Desert since 1993, involving scientists from the Center of Paleontology under the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and Japanese researchers alike.

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