Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness: Dinosaur Bones Found Near Red Sea

January 08, 2014

Dinosaur Bones Found Near Red Sea

DINOSAURS have been identified in Saudi Arabia for the first time, highlighting how widespread the creatures once were.

Scientists unearthed tail bones from a giant plant-eating "titanosaur" together with teeth from a six-metre-long predator, thought to be a distant relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The 72 million-year-old fossils were discovered in the northwest of the Kingdom along the Red Sea coast.

When the dinosaurs were alive, the Arabian landmass was largely under water and formed the northern coastal edge of the African continent.

Dr Benjamin Kear, from Uppsala University in Sweden, led the team of scientists studying the remains.

"Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far," he said.

"This discovery is important not only because of where the remains were found, but also because of the fact that we can actually identify them.

"Indeed, these are the first taxonomically recognisable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian Peninsula."

The titanosaur identified by the researchers was a lumbering giant with a long neck and tail that stood on four legs.

In contrast, the meat-eating abelisaurid whose teeth were recovered was a fast-moving, bipedal theropod.

Similar dinosaurs have been found in North Africa, Madagascar and South America.

The finds are described in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.

With thanks to The Australian

This picture and more information with thanks to Al Arabiya News

A team of scientists from the Saudi Geological Survey with the active support of Uppsala University, Museum Victoria and Monash University have uncovered the first record of dinosaurs from Saudi Arabia.

What is now dry desert was once a beach littered with the bones and teeth of ancient marine reptiles and dinosaurs.

The researchers found teeth and bones dating from around 72 million years ago in the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia along the coast of the Red Sea, according to the scientific journal PLOS ONE which published the finds jointly authored by participating researchers from Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Australia.

Two types of dinosaur were described from the assemblage, a bipedal meat-eating abelisaurid distantly related to Tyrannosaurus but only about six meters long, and a plant-eating titanosaur perhaps up to 20 meters in length.

“These are the first taxonomically recognizable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian Peninsula,” Australian paleobiologist Benjamin Kear said in a statement.

“Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far,” he said.

“Dinosaur remains from the Arabian Peninsula and the area east of the Mediterranean Sea are exceedingly rare because sedimentary rocks deposited in streams and rivers during the Age of Dinosaurs are rare, particularly in Saudi Arabia itself,” said Dr. Tom Rich from Museum Victoria in Australia.

When these dinosaurs were alive, the Arabian landmass was largely underwater and formed the northwestern coastal margin of the African continent.

“The hardest fossil to find is the first one,” Dr. Rich said.

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