Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia Page #2

is important,

no matter how big or small.

The journey to discovery

is there is a reward into him

as the discovery itself.

And sometimes he says

what plays the biggest part

is simply not in our hands.

I like to think that

I am lucky, just incredibly lucky.

Lucky to work in Patagonia,

and lucky to have been there at the

right time with the right knowledge.

Many paleontological discoveries

are not made by professionals.

That's what happened

with the Argentinosaurus,

and it happened again

with yet another dinosaur.

Dr. Leonardo Salgado is a

smart colleague and friend of mine.

He and I were notified of the presence

of fossil bones not far from my museum.

We organized a field expedition and

started to dig up more bones.

They were relatively big,

so at first, we thought

that they belonged to a herbivore,

because in general these

dinosaurs tend to be larger.

But instead, the bones

proved to be those of a predator;

a very large one.

Professor Coria's team

had unveiled a first species of

a group of fierce

predators called Giganotosaurus.

The first Giganotosaurus

appeared 100 million years ago.

The 3 species in this group surpassed

the famous T. Rex in terms of size.

Although rare for reptiles,

caring for the young has be observed

among crocodiles for instance.

In dinosaurs, this caring behaviour

evolve enough to remind us of birds.

This baby female is

named Long Tooth.

However small and vulnerable,

and cute she may appear now

she is genetically programmed to

rapidly become a 45 foot long,

eight tonne predator like her mother.

In Patagonia, you have the largest

herbivore and the largest predator,

living at roughly the same

period and in the same territory.

This clearly brings us the question,

Why did this happen

that way in that place?

It is a question,

I've heard countless times.

And as a matter of fact I keep

asking myself the same question.

There is no easy answer.

It could be because

120 million years ago

South America, separated from Africa

and became an isolated world.

Evolution followed a

number of particular paths.

However, it's more complex than that.

A dry climate with colder nights

could have favoured animals

that retain their internal heat to better

because of their larger mass.

But a simpler interpretation rest

on a warm climate and the fertile land,

with all the vegetation you can eat.

Yet another theory tells

us that large herbivores

had to grow big enough,

to accommodate a large stomach

required to digest

high in fibre, low in protein vegetation.

Finally, large spans of flat space could

have led naturally to Argentinosaurus,

as the vast seas have led to whales.

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