Din O’Saurs! Our first bone find confirmed
IT’S an Irish discovery 200million years in the making – for the first time ever, dinosaur bones have been identified on the island.
The fossil bones are from a f our- l e g g e d pl a nt- e a t i ng scelidosaurus and a deadly two-legged carnivore sarcosaurus and were f ound in Antrim.
The late teacher and fossil collector Roger Byrne found the bones years ago and donated them to the Ulster Museum.
Yesterday, they were confirmed as being from the dinosaurs for the first time, and Ulster Museum will put t hem on display when it r eopens after r estrictions are lifted.
A team of experts from the University of Portsmouth and Queen’s University Belfast used 3D digital models of the fossils to identify the type of dinosaur each came from.
Researcher Professor David Martill said the two species are like chalk and cheese. He said the sarcosaurus was a spectacular animal with a large head and ran around on
two muscular, powerful l egs. The scelidosaurus was a powerful animal a dorned wit h spikes. It was a herbivore but would put up a good fight if a meat eater gave it any trouble.
Prof. Martill said: ‘One of them is, if you take your everyday view of a meat-eating dinosaur, it had a mouth full of razor-sharp serrated teeth.
‘The scelidosaurus was running around on all fours with its back legs higher than its head. It would have been adorned with big spikes capped with the sort of sheath that a claw is made of.
‘If it came and kneed you it would rip you apart. Although it was a herbivorous animal, it wasn’t a defenceless animal.’
Research l eader Dr Mike Simms said: ‘The two dinosaur fossils that Roger Byrne found were perhaps swept out to sea, alive or dead, sinking to the Jurassic seabed where they were buried and fossilised.’