A fossil found tucked away in a cupboard turns out to be the first dinosaur bone from Antarctica

Scientists have stumbled upon a rare dinosaur fossil from Antarctica, which has been kept in a cupboard for decades.

The bone is from the tail of a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur called a titanosaur. Scientists have not yet identified the species it belongs to.

It was discovered in 1985 during an expedition to Antarctica’s James Ross Island and collected by geologist Mike Thomson. Working with the British Antarctic Survey, Thomson mapped local rock layers and collected fossils of marine reptiles to aid future dating efforts. He recorded what he found as a large reptile.

Decades later, paleontologist Mark Evans saw the bone in the collections of the British Antarctic Survey and wondered if it might be a dinosaur.

“It’s only when you start thinking ‘what’s in this cupboard,’ that sometimes you come across something and think, ‘Ah, this looks interesting,'” Evans told BBC News.

He and other researchers analyzed the shape of the bone and compared it to other complete dinosaur fossils, confirming their discovery. The findings were published Monday in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Dinosaur fossils are rarely found in Antarctica because of the unforgiving ice. But millions of years ago, when this dinosaur lived, the region was full of green forests – “a very different and hospitable place than we think today,” said co-author Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum in London.

“This discovery represents only the second sauropod body fossil known from Antarctica, although it was the first dinosaur bone collected from the continent,” the study authors wrote.

At about 23 meters long, the dinosaur was the smallest of its group and may have been young when it died. Scientists don’t know how the creature met its end, but they think its body floated off the coast and sank into the sea, turning into fossils in the sea rock.

More than 100 types of titanosaurs have been identified around the world, according to the BBC. They are all four-legged plant eaters, with very long necks that help them reach the top of trees and long, pointed tails. The largest titanosaurs were over 115 feet long and weighed 60 tons.

Technology has come a long way since the discovery of the dinosaur tail bone, allowing researchers to examine the inside of the bones and gain detailed information about the ancient creatures. Thomson died in 2020 before the fossils were identified as dinosaurs.

“If he was still with us, he would be happy to know what this was,” said Evans, one of the study’s co-authors.