Full Transcript for The Dinosaur Explosion

his friends can name pretty 42 00:02:11.030 --> 00:02:16.289 much all these dinosaurs. But the thing is, I can't. 43 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:25.569 What's this one? Wait, back here. Cryolophus. Cryolophus. Cryolophosaurus? Cryolophosaurus? 44 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:27.810 I don't even... I don't think I've seen that one before. 45 00:02:27.909 --> 00:02:32.050 There's heaps of dinosaurs that I just don't recognise, that 46 00:02:32.069 --> 00:02:33.030 I've never seen before. 47 00:02:33.060 --> 00:02:38.560 Eoraptor? Like, really? Well, there's lots of different dinosaurs. 48 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:43.830 Back in my day, we had old favourites like T-Rex, Stegosaurus, 49 00:02:44.110 --> 00:02:49.710 Triceratops and Brontosaurus. And like Finn, I was dino-obsessed as 50 00:02:49.770 --> 00:02:54.500 a kid. So what's going on? Why does my three-year-old 51 00:02:54.780 --> 00:03:00.159 know so much more about dinosaurs than I ever did? Well, look, 52 00:03:00.219 --> 00:03:04.490 for all us parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, friends of people 53 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:08.310 with kids, for anyone feeling maybe just a little intimidated 54 00:03:08.449 --> 00:03:12.909 by a small human's encyclopedic dinosaur knowledge, I'm here to 55 00:03:12.949 --> 00:03:21.500 get to the bottom of this. What's the one question 56 00:03:21.539 --> 00:03:25.240 you're guaranteed to hear when you put a paleontologist in 57 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:26.759 a room full of school kids? 58 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:30.030 You know, there's always at least one kid who asks 59 00:03:30.090 --> 00:03:31.590 me what my favorite dinosaur is. 60 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:34.819 Steve Brassati and I grew up around the same time. 61 00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:37.069 And like him, I agree. 62 00:03:37.250 --> 00:03:39.370 It's got to be T-Rex. You know, I'm a product 63 00:03:39.409 --> 00:03:42.289 of that generation that's just fascinated with T-Rex. And a 64 00:03:42.310 --> 00:03:44.250 lot of times these kids look at me and sometimes 65 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:46.789 they even say it and they say, really, T-Rex? I mean, 66 00:03:46.849 --> 00:03:49.650 come on, you know, isn't that a little bit cliched? 67 00:03:50.289 --> 00:03:52.830 And so kids now, yeah, they have all these amazing 68 00:03:53.009 --> 00:03:56.969 feathered raptors from China. They have these earth-shaking dinosaurs bigger 69 00:03:56.990 --> 00:04:00.930 than we ever thought. Things like Dreadnoughtus and and Patagotitan. 70 00:04:01.090 --> 00:04:03.300 These were just dinosaurs I didn't have as a kid. 71 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:04.280 You didn't have as a kid. 72 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.819 You see, Steve and I were of a particular era. 73 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:11.439 And when it comes to dinosaurs, it kind of shows. 74 00:04:15.250 --> 00:04:18.250 It's not so much that kids these days know more 75 00:04:18.290 --> 00:04:21.509 than we did. It's just that there's so much more 76 00:04:21.550 --> 00:04:24.730 to know. Over the past couple of decades, there's been 77 00:04:24.870 --> 00:04:28.439 an explosion in the discovery of new dinosaur species. 78 00:04:28.889 --> 00:04:31.209 Yeah, hi, my name's Dr. Jonathan Tennant, but you can 79 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:35.110 just call me John, and I'm an independent paleontologist or 80 00:04:35.230 --> 00:04:35.949 rogue scientist. 81 00:04:36.370 --> 00:04:40.610 John's PhD put numbers to this explosion in dinosaur knowledge, 82 00:04:40.970 --> 00:04:42.879 and it wasn't even the main focus of his work. 83 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.060 We assembled this huge data set in a place called 84 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.959 the Paleobiology Database, which is a documentation of every single 85 00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:53.779 published fossil record that we've ever discovered. Every sort of 86 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.519 dinosaur species that we know is recorded in this database. 87 00:04:57.889 --> 00:05:00.490 So, you wanted to know how many dinosaurs had been 88 00:05:00.529 --> 00:05:05.529 discovered recently. And when did this dino explosion really begin? 89 00:05:06.069 --> 00:05:10.160 Every dinosaur species and every occurrence, so every individual fossil 90 00:05:10.180 --> 00:05:12.740 that we've ever sort of discovered that has been published, 91 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:15.379 has a certain date associated with it. And what you 92 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:17.459 can do is just simply chart that through time. 93 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:23.879 Okay, so I wouldn't usually describe a graph on this show. 94 00:05:24.589 --> 00:05:27.680 But the graphs that John produced based on his analyses 95 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:33.300 are super elegant. So here we go. Imagine two axes, 96 00:05:33.899 --> 00:05:37.370 a side-to-side or horizontal line that crosses an up-down or 97 00:05:37.430 --> 00:05:42.089 vertical line. Now, along the horizontal line are years, starting 98 00:05:42.430 --> 00:05:45.910 way back before 1850 over on the left and running 99 00:05:46.269 --> 00:05:47.939 right up to the present, to the 2000s on the right. 100 00:05:50.069 --> 00:05:53.750 On the vertical axis is what's called the cumulative number 101 00:05:53.790 --> 00:05:57.209 of new fossil discoveries. So what that actually means is 102 00:05:57.250 --> 00:06:00.569 that as new discoveries are made, they're allocated a date, 103 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:05.339 they're assigned a year on the horizontal axis, and over time, 104 00:06:05.500 --> 00:06:08.439 as you move from one year to the next, new 105 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.259 discoveries are added to old discoveries. So the line that's 106 00:06:12.339 --> 00:06:18.579 produced represents the increase in fossil discoveries over time. Starting 107 00:06:18.850 --> 00:06:21.189 way over on the left, back before 1850, the line 108 00:06:21.209 --> 00:06:26.430 kind of just bubbles along, increasing from the 1850s through 109 00:06:26.449 --> 00:06:33.699 the 1900s. New

discoveries here and there, to the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s. 110 00:06:34.129 --> 00:06:39.259 Just a slight, shallow, gradual increase. A line that's slowly, 111 00:06:39.699 --> 00:06:41.600 almost imperceptibly building. 112 00:06:42.259 --> 00:06:46.639 But then, around the 1990s, something strange happened. and we 113 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.540 see this huge explosive growth in the number of discoveries 114 00:06:50.579 --> 00:06:51.920 being made and being published. 115 00:06:52.519 --> 00:06:56.240 Just before the marker for the year 2000, the trend shifts. 116 00:06:56.980 --> 00:07:01.120 The graph line suddenly gets steeper, like way steeper. It 117 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:07.439 stops bubbling and just shoots skywards, like the neck of 118 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:11.160 a brachiosaurus. If you're familiar with the idea of an 119 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:15.639 exponential curve where things grow more and more quickly over time, 120 00:07:16.139 --> 00:07:20.029 that's what this looks like. From the late 1990s, there's 121 00:07:20.069 --> 00:07:24.850 been a massive, unprecedented increase in the number of new 122 00:07:24.949 --> 00:07:31.990 dinosaur discoveries. So, what happened in the late 90s to 123 00:07:32.050 --> 00:07:35.470 cause this rapid and massive increase in the number of 124 00:07:35.550 --> 00:07:36.910 new dinosaur discoveries? 125 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:39.439 Welcome to Jurassic Park. 126 00:07:39.939 --> 00:07:44.360 No, seriously. The paleontologists that I spoke to, they all 127 00:07:44.439 --> 00:07:46.519 told me... What do they got in there, King Kong? 128 00:07:48.100 --> 00:07:50.660 Jurassic Park was a big deal. 129 00:07:51.339 --> 00:07:54.439 In the mid-1990s, there was a certain film published called 130 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:55.160 Jurassic Park. 131 00:07:55.379 --> 00:07:57.959 That was a big thing for the field. 132 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:00.920 That's paleontologist Steve Brassati again. 133 00:08:00.939 --> 00:08:03.959 It was a little over 25 years ago that that 134 00:08:04.060 --> 00:08:08.550 film came out, and that changed everything. It really did. 135 00:08:08.589 --> 00:08:12.110 It really did. It brought dinosaurs into pop culture in 136 00:08:12.149 --> 00:08:13.410 a way they had never been before. 137 00:08:13.990 --> 00:08:16.449 And because of this huge sort of public interest, there 138 00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:20.329 was a resurgence in paleontology again. So, you know, people 139 00:08:20.370 --> 00:08:23.970 actually used Jurassic Park as leverage to get funding to 140 00:08:24.009 --> 00:08:26.649 conduct more dinosaur research in North America because it had 141 00:08:26.689 --> 00:08:28.310 such a huge public sway. 142 00:08:28.329 --> 00:08:30.480 You can meet people all over the world. I have 143 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.639 colleagues all over the world, people that are roughly my age, 144 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:36.259 the generation of paleontologists in their 30s, that say. 145 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:41.559 Jurassic Park is what got them into dinosaurs. And it's 146 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:43.860 not just kids like me growing up in the U.S. 147 00:08:44.019 --> 00:08:45.740 It's people all over the world. You know, I have 148 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:49.370 colleagues from China, from South America that say Jurassic Park 149 00:08:49.750 --> 00:08:52.950 got me into dinosaurs. That is wonderful. I just think 150 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:56.509 that's a magical thing that a film, a piece of entertainment, 151 00:08:57.110 --> 00:09:00.090 had that much impact on science. 152 00:09:03.690 --> 00:09:06.990 But According to Steve, it's not just Jeff Goldblum we 153 00:09:07.009 --> 00:09:09.649 have to thank for all the cool new dinosaurs that 154 00:09:09.690 --> 00:09:13.480 we're finding. Another big reason for the dino explosion is 155 00:09:13.509 --> 00:09:18.259 because new countries bursting with fossils have started investing in 156 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:20.200 dino hunting. It used to. 157 00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:23.559 Be really a game that was just played by a 158 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:26.679 few posh old professors and a few universities and a 159 00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:29.450 few places in Europe and North America mostly. 160 00:09:29.610 --> 00:09:32.429 So, you know, if you think about the most well-known or, 161 00:09:32.470 --> 00:09:35.159 you know, most loved dinosaurs, it's things like Tyrannosaurus rex 162 00:09:35.340 --> 00:09:38.500 or Triceratops. And these are animals that come from North America. 163 00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:41.379 But that's not the case anymore. The field is growing. 164 00:09:41.419 --> 00:09:46.519 It's diversifying. There are paleontologists, particularly young paleontologists all over 165 00:09:46.590 --> 00:09:50.549 the world, people in China, in Brazil, in Argentina, in 166 00:09:50.570 --> 00:09:54.210 these enormous developing countries that are full of wide open spaces, 167 00:09:54.370 --> 00:09:56.649 full of rocks bursting with dinosaur bones. 168 00:09:57.269 --> 00:10:00.429 China in particular has become a treasure trove. for new 169 00:10:00.570 --> 00:10:04.769 and cool dinosaurs. They pop up like prehistoric Pop-Tarts over there. 170 00:10:05.450 --> 00:10:08.750 And what's been so amazing about all these new discoveries 171 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.840 is that they're changing a lot of our ideas about dinosaurs. 172 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:14.720 And this opened up the sort of bonanza effect in 173 00:10:14.799 --> 00:10:18.370 China and around Asia in particular. where once something's been discovered, 174 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:20.649 people go there and they want to discover more and 175 00:10:20.669 --> 00:10:23.549 more and more. And all of a sudden now, they 176 00:10:23.769 --> 00:10:26.870 had these huge dig sites being revealed, and particularly farmers 177 00:10:26.889 --> 00:10:29.190 were discovering, you know, hundreds of fossils all the time

178 00:10:29.269 --> 00:10:31.950 on their land. And there were these crazy new discoveries 179 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:34.929 that completely shook up, you know, our understanding of dinosaurs. 180 00:10:35.409 --> 00:10:37.070 And it's exceptionally exciting to watch. 181 00:10:41.929 --> 00:10:44.580 After the break, we're getting up close and personal with 182 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:48.399 a new dinosaur discovery. And let me tell you, it's 183 00:10:48.419 --> 00:10:57.669 going to give T-Rex a run for its money. Hey, 184 00:10:58.009 --> 00:11:00.190 it's Wendy from Science Versus, and I want to tell 185 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:03.669 you about a podcast that I love, Science Friday. They 186 00:11:03.690 --> 00:11:06.230 cover all sorts of amazing things in the weird and 187 00:11:06.370 --> 00:11:10.570 wonderful world of science, from how concussions affect our brain 188 00:11:10.710 --> 00:11:13.850 to the inner secrets of a snake with a spider 189 00:11:13.970 --> 00:11:16.090 on its tail. It's a lot of news that you 190 00:11:16.129 --> 00:11:18.509 can use and some that you can't, but you're going 191 00:11:18.529 --> 00:11:20.789 to love anyway. It's hosted by Ira Flato and Phyllis. 192 00:11:21.610 --> 00:11:24.720 Flora Lichtman, who is an old friend of the show 193 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:27.620 and loves a pun as much as we do. Science 194 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:30.860 Friday is on every day wherever you get your podcasts. 195 00:11:36.120 --> 00:11:38.529 Welcome back. We've just heard that we're in the midst 196 00:11:38.629 --> 00:11:41.990 of a massive dinosaur gold rush with new dino discoveries 197 00:11:42.029 --> 00:11:44.970 happening way more often than they used to. Now, that's 198 00:11:45.029 --> 00:11:47.720 a little thanks to the movie Jurassic Park, But it's 199 00:11:47.820 --> 00:11:51.259 also because countries like China have started investing more and 200 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:55.279 more into paleontology. We're now going to dive right into 201 00:11:55.299 --> 00:11:57.960 this gold rush to see what it's like to discover 202 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:00.919 a new dinosaur. This story comes to us from the 203 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:03.710 podcast Some of All Paths by Joel Werner. 204 00:12:04.149 --> 00:12:04.529 Here's Joel. 205 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:08.200 Steve Brassati has spent his career on the front lines 206 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.590 of the global paleo resurgence. He's been involved in the 207 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:15.110 discovery of a bunch of new dinosaur species, but just 208 00:12:15.309 --> 00:12:17.610 how many, he's kind of too humble to say. 209 00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:20.639 You know, I don't actually keep a list. I keep 210 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.940 a list of my publications, you know, the journal articles 211 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.820 and books and things. But it's somewhere around 15, I think. 212 00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:29.779 And it's not that I'm going out and finding 15 213 00:12:29.779 --> 00:12:31.980 dinosaurs myself. That's not how it works. 214 00:12:32.259 --> 00:12:34.980 How it works is that Steve's a part of a 215 00:12:35.019 --> 00:12:39.139 team that discovers a new fossil, or he's called into 216 00:12:39.179 --> 00:12:42.370 a museum to help identify a fossil that someone else 217 00:12:42.389 --> 00:12:46.659 has discovered, often a construction worker or a farmer. which 218 00:12:46.679 --> 00:12:49.059 was the case with one such new discovery he helped 219 00:12:49.179 --> 00:12:51.659 make during his time working in China. 220 00:12:51.940 --> 00:12:54.639 I'm there to work with some colleagues. I'm working with 221 00:12:54.679 --> 00:13:00.250 my good friend Junchang Liu, one of China's leading dinosaur hunters. Sadly, 222 00:13:00.309 --> 00:13:03.649 Junchang passed away a few months ago, a real giant 223 00:13:03.690 --> 00:13:08.129 in the field, somebody we're already missing tremendously. But Junchang 224 00:13:08.149 --> 00:13:11.049 and I, we've had a collaboration for a while, and 225 00:13:11.070 --> 00:13:12.929 I had come to China to work with him, and 226 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:17.389 he said, we got something. Up in Liaoning, we gotta 227 00:13:17.429 --> 00:13:17.990 go see it. 228 00:13:19.289 --> 00:13:23.730 Liaoning province shares a border with North Korea in China's northeast. 229 00:13:24.230 --> 00:13:27.149 And it's a perfect example of how a place not 230 00:13:27.190 --> 00:13:32.519 traditionally associated with paleontology can quickly become a hotbed of discoveries. 231 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:36.179 Discoveries that start to challenge everything we think we know 232 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:41.000 about dinosaurs. Now, Liaoning's probably not a part of China 233 00:13:41.019 --> 00:13:43.860 you've heard about unless you're a paleontologist. 234 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:45.889 It's not the sort of place that a lot of 235 00:13:45.950 --> 00:13:48.870 tourists get to, but this is nirvana for dinosaur hunters 236 00:13:48.909 --> 00:13:53.820 because in the mid-90s, you had some locals there, mostly farmers, 237 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:58.629 starting to discover these amazingly preserved fossils of dinosaurs covered 238 00:13:58.669 --> 00:14:01.779 in feathers. And it turned out there wasn't just one 239 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:04.480 or two feathered dinosaurs, but there were tons of these things. 240 00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:06.820 And there were lots of other fossils, too. There were fishes, 241 00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:10.600 there were mammals, mammals covered in hair. There were reptiles 242 00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:14.970 and amphibians and there were pterodactyls all found together because 243 00:14:14.990 --> 00:14:17.990 you had these ancient ecosystems that were buried by volcanoes. 244 00:14:18.549 --> 00:14:21.669 So these things were locked in place, almost Pompeii style. 245 00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:24.269 And so that means that people are still finding a 246

00:14:24.309 --> 00:14:26.649 lot of these fossils. And these fossils are really important 247 00:14:26.669 --> 00:14:29.809 because with each new feathered dinosaur, that's another clue to 248 00:14:29.850 --> 00:14:33.009 help us understand how evolution took one of these meat-eating, 249 00:14:33.129 --> 00:14:36.539 land-living T. rex-type dinosaurs and turned it into a bird. 250 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:40.279 So when the call came through that a farmer in 251 00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:44.559 Liaoning had found a fossil in his field, Steve moved quickly. 252 00:14:45.889 --> 00:14:48.909 He arranged to meet Jun Chang at Beijing's central train 253 00:14:48.929 --> 00:14:50.509 station the very next morning. 254 00:14:50.529 --> 00:14:54.889 You know, that train crawled through the rural landscapes of China. 255 00:14:54.909 --> 00:14:56.549 And it was early in the morning. I was trying 256 00:14:56.590 --> 00:14:58.299 to sleep, but I couldn't. I was, you know, far 257 00:14:58.340 --> 00:15:00.220 too excited about what might be there. 258 00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:03.960 When they arrived in Liaoning, Steve and Jun Chang were 259 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:07.120 greeted by some local dignitaries who escorted them to a 260 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:07.980 black SUV. 261 00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:10.139 They sped us through town. They took us to this 262 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:13.600 building in the outskirts of town and A really nondescript building. 263 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:15.480 It looked just like most of the other buildings in 264 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:16.019 the area. 265 00:15:16.570 --> 00:15:20.750 But this humble-looking building was the museum housing the fossil 266 00:15:20.769 --> 00:15:22.049 that they were there to examine. 267 00:15:22.649 --> 00:15:24.529 You know, it didn't look like the American Museum in 268 00:15:24.549 --> 00:15:26.440 New York or the Australian Museum or any of these 269 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:29.519 grand museums. It almost seemed like a hospital or an 270 00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:32.850 office building or something in there, very sterile. But they 271 00:15:32.889 --> 00:15:35.240 led us through a hallway. There were these flickering lights 272 00:15:35.649 --> 00:15:38.340 and they led us into this room, into this small room. 273 00:15:38.379 --> 00:15:40.620 And inside this room, there was this big slab of 274 00:15:40.700 --> 00:15:44.740 rock that was perched on a quite small table. And 275 00:15:44.779 --> 00:15:46.399 it really looked to me like the legs of that 276 00:15:46.460 --> 00:15:48.360 table were buckling. I was a little bit worried that 277 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:50.830 this thing was going to fall onto the floor. And 278 00:15:50.929 --> 00:15:53.730 so Jin Chung and I were called up. And we 279 00:15:53.769 --> 00:15:56.389 walked up and we looked at this thing. And that is, 280 00:15:56.629 --> 00:16:00.450 you know, one of those awesome moments of my life 281 00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:04.799 where

I was face to face with this incredible fossil. 282 00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:10.279 Clearly a dinosaur. All the bones were there. Beautiful chocolate 283 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:14.340 brown bones sticking out from this tan colored limestone. Clearly 284 00:16:14.379 --> 00:16:18.450 a raptor. Sharp teeth, sharp claws. Looks so much like Velociraptor. 285 00:16:18.730 --> 00:16:21.730 About the size of, well, a large dog. Something like 286 00:16:21.769 --> 00:16:26.039 a Saint Bernard. But covered in feathers, feathers everywhere, feathers 287 00:16:26.100 --> 00:16:28.299 on the tail, feathers on the body, feathers on the head, 288 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:30.559 feathers on the arms, and not just any feathers on 289 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:34.620 the arms, but actual quill feathers forming wings. So this 290 00:16:34.659 --> 00:16:38.320 was a raptor dinosaur with wings. And the preservation was 291 00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:42.289 so gorgeous that you could see all the fine details 292 00:16:42.330 --> 00:16:44.629 of these feathers. You could see the individual feathers. You 293 00:16:44.649 --> 00:16:46.710 could see how they were anchored to the bones, how 294 00:16:46.750 --> 00:16:49.470 they were overlapping each other to form the wing. And 295 00:16:49.509 --> 00:16:53.679 this looked basically like the same sort of structure that 296 00:16:53.720 --> 00:16:56.799 we see in modern birds. And, you know, it's hard 297 00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:00.080 to really convey in words just how magical that was 298 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:02.519 to be led into this room, you know, after this 299 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:06.470 long journey to see this object, this thing that's over 300 00:17:06.509 --> 00:17:08.650 a hundred million years old, that's, you know, like a 301 00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:12.470 piece of fine art, you know, that object just conveys 302 00:17:12.569 --> 00:17:16.970 this powerful message that birds evolved from dinosaurs. 303 00:17:19.500 --> 00:17:22.319 This dinosaur turned out to be a new species. A 304 00:17:22.339 --> 00:17:28.309 cousin of Velociraptor, it was called Shen Wan Long. But 305 00:17:28.349 --> 00:17:31.349 with so many people realising that they may have found 306 00:17:31.430 --> 00:17:36.470 some invaluable part of dino history, new dinosaurs aren't necessarily 307 00:17:36.609 --> 00:17:38.170 ending up in museums. 308 00:17:38.829 --> 00:17:42.269 There are folks out there. you know, wealthy folks that 309 00:17:42.390 --> 00:17:45.150 want to have a T-Rex in their living room. And 310 00:17:45.170 --> 00:17:47.230 who doesn't want to have a T-Rex in their living room, right? 311 00:17:47.269 --> 00:17:49.690 I mean, I don't blame people for wanting a dinosaur. 312 00:17:50.250 --> 00:17:52.130 But it means that there is a bit of a market, 313 00:17:52.619 --> 00:17:54.740 and it's similar in some ways to the art market. 314 00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:58.319 Some of these amazing fossils are these unique, one-of-a-kind pieces 315 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:02.859 that high-end collectors really want. And that breeds a black 316 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:03.420 market today. 317 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:07.509 And Steve says, whenever a tycoon with a penchant for 318 00:18:07.589 --> 00:18:12.309 dinosaurs snatches up a special fossil, science gets a bum deal. 319 00:18:12.809 --> 00:18:17.069 As a scientist, I can see how every fossil is important, 320 00:18:17.769 --> 00:18:20.839 but some fossils are really important. They're unique. They're a 321 00:18:20.900 --> 00:18:24.180 new species. It's a complete skeleton that shows details that 322 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:28.339 no other fossils show. Those kind of fossils really do 323 00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:30.799 need to be in museums so they can be studied, 324 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:35.000 so they can be conserved. so they can be made 325 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:38.339 available to future generations, so they can be put on display, 326 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:40.559 so they can be accessible to the public, so people 327 00:18:40.599 --> 00:18:42.289 can see them and be inspired by them. 328 00:18:44.089 --> 00:18:47.650 Okay, so there's one final question that I've got to ask. 329 00:18:48.289 --> 00:18:52.369 Will this dino explosion ever end? Or could the brontosaurus 330 00:18:52.430 --> 00:18:54.859 bonanza just keep going forever? 331 00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:58.779 I think we're just getting started. And I tell this 332 00:18:58.819 --> 00:19:00.579 to all the young kids, you know, when I do talks, 333 00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:03.630 I say... People are finding more dinosaurs than ever before. 334 00:19:03.950 --> 00:19:06.730 But don't worry, we're not running out of dinosaurs because 335 00:19:07.170 --> 00:19:10.730 as people explore more of the earth, as more people 336 00:19:10.779 --> 00:19:13.279 go out and look for fossils, the more they find. 337 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:17.160 We are still finding new dinosaurs all over the place. 338 00:19:17.660 --> 00:19:21.460 And even if we stopped finding dinosaur fossils today, the 339 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:23.400 rest of science is going to keep moving on. And 340 00:19:23.420 --> 00:19:26.009 there's going to be new techniques, new technologies, new types 341 00:19:26.069 --> 00:19:29.089 of experiments and instruments and ways of thinking that that 342 00:19:29.109 --> 00:19:32.170 will help us study the dinosaurs we already have in 343 00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:35.319 ways that we never would have thought possible. So who 344 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:37.759 knows what's going to be found next? 345 00:19:38.539 --> 00:19:39.920 Or who's going to find it? 346 00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:43.359 Well, there's lots of different dinosaurs. 347 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:44.849 Wow! 348 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:45.890 Wow! 349 00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:55.400 This story came from the podcast Some of All Parts, 350 00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:59.029 which is produced and hosted by Joel Werner. Jonathan Webb 351 00:19:59.089 --> 00:20:02.069 is their science editor, sound design by Joel Werner and 352 00:20:02.109 --> 00:20:06.269 Mark Don. Additional fact-checking by Lexi Krupp and additional music 353 00:20:06.329 --> 00:20:10.119 and engineering by Peter Leonard. And Some of All Parts 354 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:13.440 is one of our favourite podcasts. You really should check 355 00:20:13.480 --> 00:20:17.289 it out. Some of All Parts. There's a link in 356 00:20:17.309 --> 00:20:20.910 the show notes. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Science Versus will be 357 00:20:21.009 --> 00:20:22.329 back in September. 358 00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:23.339 Back to you then.