14 DAY TRIAL // Anthropologists and paleontologists have known for a long time that the desolate stretches of inhospitable sand that make up the Sahara desert hide a large number of amazing artifacts, dating from as far back as the age of the dinosaurs. While other excavation sites revealed the ancient history of Egypt, a particular archaeological site, where the digs were conducted by British and Moroccan researchers, brought up two new dinosaur species, one pterosaur and one sauropod.
Pterosaurs are winged reptiles and most likely were the first birds, according to some opinions. Thus far, researchers believed that they had discovered most new species, but apparently a beak fragment proved them wrong. The new fossilized remains could not be identified by any of those present, so hopes are high that the fragment comes from a new species.
Sauropods were large, four-legged herbivorous animals that spent most of their lives grazing for weeds and leaves in the dense vegetation of the savanna. The remains that were found in southeast Morocco are approximately 100 million years old, although the anthropologists say that further studies will be required, in order to assess their exact age, and if the fossils are indeed new species. The bone fragment had 3 feet in length, which seems to indicate that the animals must have had at least 65 feet (20 meters) from extremity to extremity.
Irish scientist Nizar Ibrahim, an expert on North African dinosaurs from the University College Dublin (UCD), says that "Finding two specimens in one expedition is remarkable, especially as both might well represent completely new species." Alongside the UCD personnel, the team that discovered the artifacts also included scientists from the Universite Hassan II in Casablanca, Morocco.
If the latest find in the Sahara proves to be genuine, and the researchers' suspicions come true, then this could be the greatest find in the field over the last 50 years. Such an achievement would crown a fruitful year of explorations for anthropologists and archaeologists worldwide.