![Antarctica's Dinosaur: 40 Years in a Drawer](https://cdn.slatesource.com/f/6/b/f6b4edbd-e0c6-48d9-ac37-ae88867e8fd4.webp) # Antarctica's Dinosaur: 40 Years in a Drawer - [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/antarctica-s-dinosaur-40-years-in-a-drawer) - By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph) - Created on Aug 5, 2026 ![Travel photo 1](https://cdn.slatesource.com/4/7/f/47f5ea31-4d28-4acb-a732-b88db5639997.webp) ![Travel photo 2](https://cdn.slatesource.com/7/b/c/7bc4323c-8f95-4a30-81a2-385edbc922b8.webp) ![Travel photo 3](https://cdn.slatesource.com/6/5/0/650bacdc-3d65-47b0-b66c-29a88e616e11.webp) ## A bonebone that waitedwaited 40 yearsyears to be understoodunderstood In DecemberDecember 19851985, MikeMike ThomsonThomson, a geologistgeologist on a BritishBritish AntarcticAntarctic SurveySurvey expeditionexpedition, foundfound a fossilfossil on the rockyrocky cliffscliffs of JamesJames RossRoss IslandIsland, off the tiptip of the AntarcticAntarctic PeninsulaPeninsula. He thoughtthought it was from a largelarge marinemarine reptilereptile, loggedlogged it, and putput it in a collectioncollection drawerdrawer. It stayedstayed therethere, unlabelledunlabelled and unremarkableunremarkable, for fourfour decadesdecades. Then palaeontologistpalaeontologist MarkMark EvansEvans openedopened the drawerdrawer, lookedlooked at the ten-centimetreten-centimetre vertebravertebra underunder a CT scannerscanner, and sawsaw somethingsomething nobodynobody had everever foundfound on AntarcticaAntarctica beforebefore: a dinosaurdinosaur. The studystudy was publishedpublished on 29 JuneJune 20262026 in ActaActa PalaeontologicaPalaeontologica PolonicaPolonica, and it rewritesrewrites the fossilfossil recordrecord for the southernmostsouthernmost continentcontinent on EarthEarth. Age of the fossil 83 million years (Late Cretaceous, Campanian) Vertebra length Approximately 10 centimetres Dinosaur group Titanosauria (the largest land animals ever) Estimated body length 6 to 7 metres (juvenile or dwarf species) Years in a drawer 40 (1985 to 2026) Location found James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula Journal published Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 29 June 2026 🦕🧊🔬01.12.1985 – 29.06.2026 Antarctica, 83 million years ago. It is not ice but lush temperate forest. Long-necked titanosaurs graze amid ferns and conifers. This one dies, perhaps near a river, and its carcass washes out to sea. The carcass settles among ammonites in shallow sediment off the coast. One tail vertebra is preserved in rock as continents slowly drift apart. Gondwana begins its long fracture. 01.12.1985Geologist Mike Thomson of the British Antarctic Survey chips a bone out of the Santa Marta Formation on James Ross Island. He logs it as a possible marine reptile fossil and carries it back to the BAS collection in Cambridge. 01.12.1985 01.01.1986The fossil is catalogued as BAS D.8621.25 and stored in a drawer. No further analysis is conducted. It spends the next four decades beside ammonites and sea-floor specimens. 01.01.1986 01.09.2024Palaeontologist Mark Evans, reviewing older BAS collections, notices the vertebra has unusual features: a hollow on one end, a round bump on the other, a combination he recognises from titanosaur anatomy. 01.09.2024 01.03.2025High-resolution CT scans confirm the internal structure. The bone-wall thickness, the ball-and-socket geometry, and the internal chambers are definitively those of a titanosaur sauropod, not a marine animal. 01.03.2025 29.06.2026The paper is published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. BAS D.8621.25 is named the first dinosaur fossil ever collected in Antarctica, predating even Antarctopelta oliveroi, long assumed to hold that title. 29.06.2026 The fossil pre-dates Antarctopelta oliveroi, the armoured ankylosaur found in 1986 and long credited as Antarctica's first dinosaur discovery, because Thomson found this vertebra in December 1985, a full year earlier. The drawer, not the field, was where Antarctica's dinosaur record was waiting. At 83 million years ago, Antarctica was part of Gondwana and sat much further north than today. Temperatures were warm enough for dense conifer forests. The titanosaur would have shared its world with early flowering plants, large insects, and seabirds fishing in warm coastal waters. Titanosauria is the group that includes the largest land animals known to science: Argentinosaurus (estimated 70 tonnes), Patagotitan (69 tonnes), and Dreadnoughtus (65 tonnes). This Antarctic specimen was far smaller, either a juvenile or a dwarf island species, at a modest 6 to 7 metres from snout to tail. > Its close relatives travelled between South America and Australia via Antarctica. This new find confirms that Antarctica was not an isolated backwater but a busy corridor for the largest animals on Earth. Antarctica has the sparsest dinosaur record of any continent because nearly all its rock is buried under kilometres of ice. As climate change causes the ice to retreat, geologists expect more fossils to surface from the exposed rock of the Antarctic Peninsula, possibly including species entirely new to science. [Natural History Museum: Antarctica's first dinosaur, explained](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2026/june/first-ever-dinosaur-fossil-discovered-on-antarctica-a-titanosaur.html?utm_source=slatesource)