Level 1 - Absolute Beginner
Scientists have found a new dinosaur. The bones were in a museum for 100 years. No one knew what they were.
The bones came from the Isle of Wight, an island in England. A man found them at the bottom of a cliff. They went to the Natural History Museum in London in 1924.
The dinosaur is called Invictibellatrix amberina. The name means unconquered female warrior. It had feathers and long claws. It was about 3 to 4 metres long.
It lived about 120 million years ago. It is the first one of its group found in Europe.
- fossil
- The old bones of an animal in rock.
- dinosaur
- A big animal that lived millions of years ago.
- museum
- A place that shows old and interesting things.
- cliff
- A high, steep wall of rock.
- claw
- A hard, sharp nail on an animal.
- feather
- A light part of a bird's body.
- island
- Land with water all around it.
- warrior
- A person who fights.
Level 2 - Elementary
A fossil that sat in a museum for about a century has been named as a new species of dinosaur. The scientists published their study on October 14 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The bones were collected by an amateur at the foot of a cliff on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight, England. They reached the Natural History Museum in London in 1924 and stayed in storage.
The animal is called Invictibellatrix amberina, which means unconquered female warrior. Amberina points to the amber found in the rocks. It was a megaraptoran, a group of fast two-legged meat eaters, and it is the first of the group found in Europe.
It lived in the Early Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago. It was about 3 to 4 metres long and about 1.5 metres tall. It had feathers and claws 10 to 20 centimetres long.
- species
- A kind of living thing.
- amateur
- A person who does something for love, not as a job.
- storage
- A place where things are kept.
- amber
- Hard, golden tree sap from long ago.
- carnivore
- An animal that eats meat.
- Cretaceous
- A time from about 145 to 66 million years ago.
- journal
- A magazine for scientific studies.
- coast
- The land next to the sea.
Level 3 - Intermediate
A dinosaur that spent a century overlooked in a museum has finally been recognised as a new species. Researchers led by Cassius Morrison of UCL, with senior author Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum, named it Invictibellatrix amberina in a paper published in Royal Society Open Science on October 14.
The fossil was collected by an amateur at the base of a cliff on the Isle of Wight's south-west coast and reached the museum in 1924. Re-examined with modern methods, it proved to be a megaraptoran, a lineage of agile, two-legged predators with long claws, and the first member of that group ever identified in Europe.
The name means unconquered female warrior, while amberina refers to amber in the rocks where the bones lay and to a female name. The animal lived roughly 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, stood a little over 1.5 metres tall and measured three to four metres in length. It carried feathers and claws 10 to 20 centimetres long.
The work was funded by the Palaeontographical Society, the Royal Society and UKRI. It is a reminder that museum drawers can hold discoveries as important as fresh digs, and that a group once thought to belong mostly to the southern continents may have had a far wider reach.
- overlooked
- Not noticed or considered.
- lineage
- A line of descent from common ancestors.
- agile
- Able to move quickly and easily.
- predator
- An animal that hunts others for food.
- identified
- Recognised and named.
- funded
- Paid for by a person or organisation.
- palaeontology
- The study of ancient life through fossils.
- reach
- The area or range something covers.
Level 4 - Advanced
Few discoveries are as quietly satisfying as one made without leaving the building. A fossil gathered from the foot of a cliff on the Isle of Wight and deposited at the Natural History Museum in 1924 has now been identified as a previously unknown dinosaur, Invictibellatrix amberina, described in Royal Society Open Science on October 14.
Lead author Cassius Morrison, of UCL, and senior author Paul Barrett of the museum assign the animal to the megaraptorans, a group of lightly built, long-clawed theropods. It is the first member of that lineage recognised in Europe, an observation that complicates the older picture in which such predators were thought to be largely a southern-hemisphere story.
The reconstruction is of a feathered hunter roughly three to four metres long and a little over 1.5 metres at the hip, living about 120 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous. Its claws, 10 to 20 centimetres long, point to a hunting style based on grasping. The genus name, meaning unconquered female warrior, and the species name, nodding to amber in the local rocks, give the creature a personality its century in storage never allowed.
The study, supported by the Palaeontographical Society, the Royal Society and UKRI, is also an argument for collections. Specimens gathered by amateurs a hundred years ago, often with imprecise records and few expectations, can be reinterpreted when techniques and comparative material improve, and the next surprise may already be sitting in a drawer.
- deposited
- Placed somewhere for safekeeping.
- theropod
- A group of mostly meat-eating dinosaurs that walked on two legs.
- complicates
- Makes something harder to understand.
- hemisphere
- Half of the Earth, such as north or south.
- reconstruction
- A rebuilt picture or model of how something looked.
- grasping
- Seizing and holding firmly.
- imprecise
- Not exact.
- comparative
- Based on comparing one thing with another.
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