Did dinosaurs swim to Africa?
Between 245 and 66 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the land. Some groups of dinosaurs evolved to be able to fly but, until now, experts thought that they never truly took to the water – apart from having a bit of a paddle. However, dinosaur bones that were discovered in Africa have now challenged this theory.
The bones came from a group of dinosaurs called hadrosaurids. Scientists describe hadrosaurids as “duck-billed” because their snouts were shaped a bit like ducks’ bills (or beaks). They first appeared in North America during a period known as the late
Cretaceous – between
100 million and 66 million years ago.
They eventually spread into
Europe and
Asia, which were connected to North
America at that time.
However, scientists were very puzzled by the bones appearing in Africa. Today, because the land has moved over many years,
Africa is connected to Asia, but in the Cretaceous period, what is now Africa was a huge island separated from Asia and Europe by sea. So how did the hadrosaurids get there, across hundreds of miles of water, millions of years ago?
According to a new scientific study, the bones found – from a skull, an arm and a leg – came from three species, one smaller and two larger. In fact, scientists think the skull belongs to an entirely new duck-billed species, named Minqaria bata. This was between three and four metres long and was about the size of a pony. The scientists say the anatomy (body structure) of Minqaria bata was similar to European duck-billed dinosaurs.
The study says the only possible conclusion is that the duck-billed dinosaurs must have swum or floated to Africa. Dr Nicholas Longrich, one of the authors, said, “The Cretaceous lasted nearly 100 million years. A lot of strange things will happen in that time – including dinosaurs crossing seas.” Dr Longrich described the hadrosaurids in Africa as the “most surprising find” of his career. He said a duck-billed dinosaur was “the last thing” he would have imagined finding in Africa.