Greenland has been a place of intrigue since time immemorial. It is the largest island on Earth, sitting at a total land area of 2.1 million sq. km (822,000 sq. mi). Despite this, much of the land is covered in ice all year round, as the Greenland Ice Sheet is also the second-largest ice sheet in the world, covering about 79% of the surface of the island; it plays second only to Antarctica.
All that ice, of course, blocks access to most of the land underneath, some of which have been sitting there unexplored for thousands of years. It comes as a surprise, then, when a spectacular find comes up that was sourced from Greenland rock. That is precisely the case with new research published in the journal Diversity, which gave Greenland its first-ever dinosaur find.
The special dinosaur was actually found by a collaboration of scientists from Denmark, Portugal, and Germany, all the way back in 1994. Preliminary analysis had scientists assign one of the earlier finds of this then-mystery dinosaur to the genus Plateosaurus, one of the earlier, or basal, forms of dinosaurs known as the sauropodomorphs. The descendants of these sauropodomorphs would eventually become the sauropods, the members of which include Australia’s biggest dinosaur find Australotitan cooperensis and all your favorite long-necked dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park movie franchise.
Upon reexamination of the specimens obtained using micro-CT scanning, which included two disfigured skull fossils, a team of experts led by Victor Beccari have since reclassified their dinosaur into a new genus; it is now named Issi saaneq, which in the Inuit language of Greenland means “cold bone.” The two skulls were said to have belonged to one juvenile and one young adult I. saaneq.
Said co-author Dr. Oliver Wings from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU): “It is exciting to discover a close relative of the well-known Plateosaurus, hundreds of which have already been found here in Germany.”
Beccari followed: “The anatomy of the two skulls is unique in many respects, for example in the shape and proportions of the bones. These specimens certainly belong to a new species,”
Fossil dating places I. saaneq at around 214 million years old, placing it right at the tail end of the Triassic period, making it a contemporary of the aforementioned Plateosaurus as a fellow sauropodomorph and as a member of the subgroup called the plateosaurids. It would have lived during a time of geological upheaval, as Pangaea was starting to break apart during this time period.
The landmark find makes I. saaneq the first-ever dinosaur identified as a Greenlandic species, making its discovery crucial in understanding the early days of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs like I. saaneq mark the earliest adaptations of the dinosaurs that would soon give rise to the sauropods, true giants of the dinosaur world that ruled the land for nearly 150 million years.
According to a press release by MLU, the fossil will be handed over to the Natural History Museum of Denmark once all paleontological studies on it are completed.
References
- Beccari, V., Mateus, O., Wings, O., Milàn, J., & Clemmensen, L. B. (2021). Issi saaneq gen. Et sp. Nov. —A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the late triassic(Norian) of jameson land, central east greenland. Diversity, 13(11), 561. https://doi.org/10.3390/d13110561
- Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. (2021, November 8). “Cold bone”: Researchers discover first dinosaur species that lived on Greenland 214 million years ago. Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. https://pressemitteilungen.pr.uni-halle.de/index.php?modus=pmanzeige&pm_id=5316
- MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITÄT HALLE-WITTENBERG. (2021, November 8). “Cold bone”: Researchers discover first dinosaur species that lived on Greenland 214 million years ago. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/934112
