00:00You're likely familiar with fossils like this one, giant T-Rex skeletons displayed
00:08in museums.
00:09However, that species was one of the last to live on planet Earth before the asteroid
00:12impact with researchers now saying that the earliest dinosaurs may never be uncovered.
00:18Current fossils date back around 230 million years, but their genetics feature tons of
00:22diversity pointing to millions of years of evolution preceding them.
00:26This coupled with their geographic place of discovery seems to indicate we don't yet
00:29know where the dinosaur family started.
00:31That's due in large part to the conditions in which fossils form, with a skeleton having
00:35to be covered in mud so that it doesn't rot away, eventually mineralized instead.
00:40So what if the first dinosaurs lived and died in areas that didn't have a lot of mud?
00:43Or what if those areas became difficult to access for humans to find them?
00:47Well, a new paper posits the latter.
00:49With the researchers writing, paleontological expeditions to these regions may be less common
00:53as a result of the harsh environment of the Sahara and the inaccessibility of many areas
00:58of the Amazon.
00:59What's more, they say that colonialism and political instability in those regions pose
01:03continued issues for researchers, meaning until we overcome the issues of our own species,
01:08we may never be able to pinpoint the birthplace of dinosaurs.
Comments