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1.Have you found a nest on this trip? If so how do you put a cast around
it?
Answer: We have not found any dinosaur
nests or dinosaur eggs. The closest we’ve come is when we have found
broken ostrich eggs from living ostriches! It’s quite common not to
find dinosaur eggs and particularly nests. Nests and eggs can be preserved
in special circumstances: typically in ancient environments that included
sand dunes or in places that were nesting grounds. Most of the ancient
environments preserved here in Niger are riverbeds or the banks and
plains along rivers. These are places where it would be rare to find
eggs and nests. But we might get lucky!
2.How do you decide to name a dinosaur?
Answer: First, you have to check it
out carefully and make sure it is in fact a new dinosaur and different
from all other discoveries that preceded it. Then you make a list
of the new animal’s special features and describe its bones carefully.
Next you publish the description with a new name. The name is your
choice, however, it usually has some special meaning for the dinosaur.
(For example, was it a plant eater? Was it especially small or fast?
Where did it live? Did it have any unusual body parts?) Also, the
name you choose must never have been used before. If you fail in any
of the above points, the name that you invented is not considered
valid, and someone else could name the dinosaur. So careful work is
important.
3.How deep do you have to dig to get a dinosaur bone?
4.Were you able to find a more complete Nigersaurus like you hoped?
Answer: With the bones we have just
discovered and the ones we discovered three years ago, we now have
most of the skull and skeleton—maybe 75-80 percent. But there is a
lot of work — actually a whole lot of work by a team of people with
many different skills —before Nigersaurus will stand again. We need
to clean the bones, mold and cast them, study them carefully to combine
skeletons of different age correctly, reconstruct the skull from the
many separate bones, and sculpt any missing pieces. While that is
going on, we will be studying and describing the bones for a formal
scientific report. When we publish the report it will include technical
drawings of the anatomy of this strange sauropod and an analysis of
what it means for dinosaur evolution.
5.Can you describe a typical day? Do you have much time left at the
end of the day to have fun? How long are you out in the field each day?
6.Do you get to a point in the trip when you really miss your families
and just want to go home or is your work just too exciting to really
get homesick?
Answer: Not really. I miss everyone
I know a lot, but I am more worried about getting to all of the places
we wanted to see with enough time to make the discoveries. This is
a once in a lifetime chance to go to some of these places with a team
like mine, and we better make use of every day.
7.Parent Question: Mrs. Tharwani wants to know - How did you feel when
you found your first dinosaur fossil?
Answer: My first dinosaur fossil, believe
it or not, was found when I was traveling alone as a graduate student
in paleontology in the Gobi Desert of Outer Mogolia. I was the first
American paleontologist to go back the the famous beds that Roy Chapman
Andrews and crews had worked in the 1920’s, and my first bone—the
very first bone that I picked up—was the thigh bone of Protoceratops,
the little horned dinosaur they made famous. I felt GREAAT!!!!!!
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