Overview
- A collections review at the British Antarctic Survey led Mark Evans to rediscover the ~10 cm vertebra that geologist Mike Thomson recorded on James Ross Island in a field notebook on 9 December 1985.
- Paleontologist Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum examined the bone and identified it as a caudal vertebra from a titanosaur, making it the first confirmed dinosaur bone from Antarctica.
- Researchers dated the specimen to the Late Cretaceous at about 82 million years old and estimated the animal at roughly seven metres long while noting it could be a juvenile or a small adult.
- The piece was likely archived originally because the 1985 team thought it was a marine reptile, which shows how initial field judgments and storage can delay key identifications.
- Because most Antarctic rock is hidden beneath ice and expeditions are limited, museum collections and detailed field records remain vital for finding rare fossils and for reconstructing past polar ecosystems.