There are still animals out there that can break the rules that we have written for them.. The animal would have weighed as much as 15 tons, and it is now one of the most complete ancient reptile fossils ever discovered in Antarctica. Life finds a way, the actor Jeff Goldblum playing scientist Ian Malcolm declared in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park.. In late April 2020, two Chinese icebreakers made a port call in Shanghai to a large state media celebration. PRO TIP: My go-to camera for all my travels is the Sony A7iii I highly recommend it! Youd hardly expect them to come in stripes as well. You can unsubscribe at any time. The partial skeleton that defines Cryodrakon was dug up from Canadas Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992. Scientists aboard the U.S. icebreaker research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer recently sailed to an Antarctic polynya areas of open water that act as ice factories to study the process of ice formation during the autumn-winter season. it has spawned numerous theories on what it could be. They published . Heres how it works. Its amazing, she says, just to see how far were going., Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. The egg case belongs to the class Clitellata worm, species of which are long extinct which makes it quite an extraordinary finding. The remains of a dinosaur described as the "closest thing we have to a real-life dragon" has been unveiled in . At the time, though, he didnt have the resources to excavate the fossil find, but he informed researchers in Argentina about the discovery. ", However, others supported the 'ancient creature' claims, adding: "It looks like an alligator skeleton, definitely some type of reptile that walks on land. A fossil from Antarctica is now the heaviest known animal in this group of prehistoric marine reptiles. She has been put through hell and come out the other side . The discovery of what appear to be sponges in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of ice has biologists baffled. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Multiple expeditions in the 19th century managed to reach the Antarctic Peninsula, and in 1911 Roald Amundsens party were the first people to reach the South Pole. NASA Found a Manhattan-Sized Cavern in Antarctica, 60 Scientists Are Trying to Block the Sun, giant underground cavern in the glacier almost as big as Manhattan, map out glaciers and ice sheets in three dimensions, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. The cavern first appeared in 2012 and most of the ice that once occupied it melted in the last three years. But the real danger is what happens after. The different morphology of this species also shows that specialization was still happening at this late point in the existence of plesiosaurs. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Thwaites holds back a large portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and a handful of nearby glaciers; if Thwaites disappears, we could see an additional eight feet of sea level rise from these sources, on top of the two feet from Thwaites itself. What comes to your mind when you hear the word iceberg? mostly around freshwater locations. Copyright 2023 Anita Hendrieka. The extremely cold water is full of animals such as Antarctic krill, a . And work on the bones unearthed over the past few decades has just begun; now that they are housed in a museum, OGorman says there is a lot of other research that can be done on this ancient specimen. Footage of the oddity was uploaded on the YouTube channel of MrMBB333 who regularly shares weird . Its intact. Sometimes the ice freezes into these beautiful ornate patterns reminiscent of dragon scales. Scientists just confirmed a 30-foot void first detected inside the monument years ago. Discovered in 2010 in Montanas famed Hell Creek Formation of the late Cretaceous, the 40-foot-long fossil took four years to excavate and prepare. For a long time, paleontologists had instead assumed that the fossils belonged to a pterosaur called Quetzalcoatlus northropi, says study coauthor Dave Hone, a paleontologist at Queen Mary University of London. The dragon skin ice was found among the continent's coastal polynyas,. "It looked like a loaf of bread, with a bulge at the top and narrow slope at the bottom," Stevens said. There are some people out there that would do anything to get their hands on some good scotch that's over a hundred years old. The number of meteorites found in Antarctica is equal to the number of meteorites found in the rest of the world combined. You can see it for yourself at coordinates 63 256.73S 605732.38W on Google Earth. In East Antarctica, there is a place where it looks like the continent is gushing out blood. Beyond spooky really because this beast morphed into any being it killed. The 15-ton elasmosaur adds to evidence that a vibrant marine ecosystem existed just before the dinosaur mass extinction. They estimate that the as-yet-unnamed elasmosaur weighed between 11.8 tons and 14.8 tons, with a head-to-tail length of nearly 40 feet. . With 170 of its 300-odd bones preserved, this scientifically important but privately owned skeleton is currently at the Museum fr Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). The different colorings can actually be simply explained as frozen meltwater (blue), sediment (black) or algae (green) that were trapped while the iceberg was forming. But to their surprise, the camera showed colonies of stationary animals attached to the rock probably sponges and related sea creatures. It was discovered by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913. H.P. The massive explosion caused pressure waves that rang Earth's atmosphere like a bell, and sensors the researchers had placed on the ice's surface recorded similar pressure waves moving through the underground chamber. Researchers drilled more than 1,600 feet under the Larsen Ice Shelf. Scientists have found microplasticssmall plastic debris about the size of a sesame seedin freshly fallen snow in Antarctica for the first time. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? 10:00pm, Feb 16, 2021 Updated: 5:14pm, Feb 16 'Strange creatures' found under Antarctica. In a bizarre video posted this week, YouTuber MrMBB333 said the remains in a remote region of Antarctica may have belonged to a prehistoric beast. Guy Williams in a statement. Great images too. But the researchers realized that a separate fossil at the Royal Tyrrell Museuma smashed-up tube of bone 16 inches longwas the middle portion of a neck vertebra from an azhdarchid that probably had a wingspan of more than 30 feet. It's thought both types of stationary animals are types of sponges or are related to sponges, but scientists did not expect to find them beneath the ice shelf, in pitch-blackness and hundreds of miles from the coast. With 170 of its 300-odd bones preserved, this scientifically important but privately owned skeleton is currently at the Museum fr Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. In order to survive, the organisms would have to feed on floating material from other animals or plants, because it is impossible for plants to photosynthesize in the sunless seawater. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. An international team is currently trying to finish the job. In 2003, however, a team discovered that the color was a result of oxidized iron. If you asked a friend, it would probably be the thing that sunk the Titanic in that famous DeCaprio movie. All 154 people on board survived after being rescued by nearby vessels. The mysterious skeleton of a creature has been found on Google Maps in Antarctica in footage which has since gone viral. While not part of the same family, the underwater Sea Spiders youll find here are some of the strangest things found in Antarctica to date! Slowly, over time, Antarctica befriended Bizzard, and found out her history. Fact or fiction .An ancient species of dragon was found living in Antarctica? The 'dragon-skin' ice in Antarctica researchers warn is a sign of 'dark chaos' in the planet's frozen oceans. Even in Antarctica, there were lots of happy elasmosaurs, Schulp says. Some of these Antarctica scary facts have simple explanations, others not so much. They determined that the tunnels were most likely the result of meltwater flowing underneath the ice shelf. Sure, it would be cool (no pun intended) for creepy things found in ice like this to have been created by some sort of mythological ice giants. And for his part, OGorman seems thrilled with the whole experience: It was quite cold, and quite cool, too. As such, Cez and Agness of eTramping were kind enough to provide some spooky, puzzling and altogether creepy things found in Antarctica. Antarctica is unlike the rest of the planet. By Garreth / November 21, 2021. Plesiosaurs generally look a little like large manatees with giraffe necks and snake-like heads, though they have four flippers rather than a manatees three. The geologists used hot-water equipment to drill the borehole through more than half a mile of the ice shelf, on the southern edge of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. While the animals exact diet cant be known without fossilized stomach contents or other evidence, OGorman says that it likely fed on crustaceans and small fish, based on the small size of its teeth. The flying reptile had a wingspan of at least 16 feet and may have grown to a wingspan of up to 33 feet, the size of its relative Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Predator as my only frame of reference with Antarctica, and have to remind myself that theres no underground temple housing such scary creatures. Site Powered by Pix & Hue. After drilling out the borehole, the scientists lowered a sediment corer and an attached video camera through the ice shelf. Was an ancient species of dragon found living in Antarctica? The wreck of Endurance has been found in the Antarctic, 106 years after the historic ship was crushed in pack ice and sank during an expedition by the explorer Ernest Shackleton. The weather is one of the problems. Thanks to this nearly Manhattan-size gap in the ice, the entire glacier along with the surrounding ice sheet will likely disappear much more quickly. "This changes our current understanding and models of these environments," Stevens said. According to a study published in Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers have discovered a massive living world below Antarctica's icy surface that could be as big as 5 million square. It was caused due to millions of years of erosion, and it is not uncommon for mountains to have at least a partially pyramidal shape in various parts of the world. ", One viewer noted: Seals dont have back legs.". It would have flying in a landscape that would have been reasonably temperate but a hell of a lot warmer than central Alberta is now.. But what was most intresting about her was that she could see Antarctica, something no other dragon could do. This site contains affiliate links for products and services we recommend. He thinks the work is well done, and hes happy that the team hasnt jumped to hasty conclusionsOGorman even hesitates to say whether the species is definitely from the Aristonectes genus, since further evidence may put the species in a new genus entirely. When it was walking on the ground, as azhdarchids often did, it was more than eight feet tall at the shoulder, roughly the same height as some giraffes. It was previously unknown if they harbored life, which makes the new finding even more important. Antarctica is a continent located in the Southern Hemisphere and contains the coldest environment on earth. YouTuber Michael Bradbury, who hosts the conspiracy channel MrMBB333,. NASA warns of 3 skyscraper-sized asteroids headed toward Earth this week. Perhaps the most dragon-like mythological creatures found in Aboriginal mythology are the Rainbow Serpents. He then zoomed in on the neck vertebra, whose ends are shot through with pneumatophores, the holes through which air sacs once entered the bones interior. "Were going to have our work cut out understanding what this means. After sending the camera down into the river, the team was surprised to learn that the cavern looked drastically different from what they had predicted. Tullbergia seems to have persisted in the same place for . But now, scientists have finally unearthed the heaviest known elasmosaur, an ancient aquatic reptile that swam the seas of the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs. This Antarctica expedition focused on recovering large volume samples of the 2-plus-million-year-old ice discovered four years earlier. "Having all those animals swimming around our camera means theres clearly an important ecosystem process happening there," Craig Stevens, a physical oceanographer at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Auckland, New Zealand, said in the statement. In other words, theres a good chance we could be looking at some serious melting in the near future, thanks to this glacier and the ice around it. Geologists taking sediment cores from the seafloor beneath the giant Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the southern edge of Antarcticas Weddell Sea discovered what biologists believe are types of sponge. No, this is not the name of that one metal band your cousin listens to. 108K views 2 years ago When we think of Antarctica, we think of snow, clusters of wildlife and beautiful landscapes. There are not, nor have there ever been actual dragons on Earth. Vostok Lake of Antarctica is the largest subglacial lake in the world. The mysterious skeleton of a creature has been found on Google Maps in Antarctica in footage which has since gone viral. It takes a little more effort and logistics in the first place, and not just everyone stumbles into those fossils, agrees Anne Schulp, vertebrate paleontologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center who was not involved in the research. The flying reptile was mostly head and neckand had at least a 16-foot wingspan, if not bigger. (GiMa38 / CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Accounts of Reptilian Monsters in Modern-Day New Guinea . Unless you get to scary Antarctica where Polar Gigantism is a thing. It was an adventure., Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. After lowering the sediment corer through the borehole, the scientists then lowered it through about 1,600 feet of seawater below the floating ice shelf. That guy is big! Schulp says from looking at photos of the bones. When it was discovered in 1911 by an Australian geologist, the explanation he came up with was that microscopic red algae gave the waterfall its coloring. DRAGON FOUND is the first book in The Dragon Queen series and reminded me (in a good way) of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern - albeit a whole lot steamier and with more political backstabbing and intrigue. The arrangement of these pneumatophores can help scientists tell pterosaur species apart. There are also indications other animals may be fixed to the boulder, such as tube worms, stalked barnacles, or hydroids, which are related to jellyfish. It's a rare sight, but that's in part because winter inAntarctica is a bitch and there aren't many people hanging around throwing parties. This cycle produces 10 times more than the average amount of sea ice formed in the coastal polynyas, Williams said. PACKING TIP: Dont leave home without a solar powered battery pack so you can keep your devices connected at all times. The abdomen is divided into ten segments. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur was found entombed in amber in 2016, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists. One place I have not yet managed to get to maybe one day. The more that he compared his measurements of Quetzalcoatlus to the Canadian fossil, the more he suspected it wasnt Quetzalcoatlus at all. A discovery of this magnitude would definitely be spooky, but according to LiveScience the formation is simply a mountain that looks like a pyramid. The underside of the river's icy roof looked nothing like what the researchers were expecting. Tom Metcalfe writes about science and space for NBC News. Come along for the ride! The finding waspublished Mondayin Frontiers in Marine Science. The groundbreaking promise of cellular housekeeping. Researchers recently brought this "hidden world" into the light, revealing a dark and jagged cavern filled with swarms of tiny, shrimplike creatures. OGorman, who was five years old when the fossil was discovered, went on the first of these trips starting in 2012. Saturday, 4th March 2023See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive. Regardless, sometimes you might get lucky and find some Antarctica mythical creatures. A team of . A mans world? The groundbreaking promise of cellular housekeeping. Scientists find 66-million-year-old sea lizard egg in Antarctica, the biggest ever recorded Chilean researchers were exploring the southern frozen continent looking for fossils of marine. Initially, the team thought their equipment was faulty. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. For 40 years, paleontologist Wann Langston worked off-and-on to complete the descriptionbut then he died in 2013, leaving the work unfinished. It could be a lot of different things. The remnants come from the final days of the dinosaurs on Earth, so these strange things in Antarctica are quite an amazing sight to see today! The Maori monster Taniwha lives in the ocean but also lurks in the rivers, lakes, or watery caves of New Zealand. The stripes color can be blue, black, or green. "But then we found this tiny, gentle slope and guessed wed got the right spot.". He then proceeds to analyse the skeleton, before concluding that it could be an ancient dinosaur. "I know there are seals in Antarctica but I don't know how they would get 50 miles inland. MrMBB333 has previously posted videos of 'mysterious' Google Maps in Antarctica, including what he alleged was a huge man-made disc emerging from the snow in the region. Dragon skin occurs when strong winds continually lift surface ice, subsequently freezing the water below. Today, there are still accounts of reptilian monsters said to haunt and harass villages throughout the remaining corners of largely unexplored forests, mountains and oceans of the world. Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, flanked by cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates flier Sultan Alneyadi, planned to strap . For me, as a Canadian who also works on pterosaurs, its pretty cool to get an actual name for an animal thats been kicking around for a while, says paleontologist Liz Martin-Silverstone, a research associate at the University of Bristol who wasnt involved with the study. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. A Fish Equipped With Antifreeze. Fossil remains found by a Chilean research team in the Atacama Desert have been determined to belong to a prehistoric pterosaur flying dragon, it was reported. It is the southernmost continent and is where the South Pole is located.

This nearly whole, deep-black skull belongs to the most complete specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex on display in Europe, an individual nicknamed Tristan Otto. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). The 'Dragon-skin' ice is very rare and has not been spotted in Antarctica since 2007 . To recognize the modern climate in the region where this pterosaur once roamed, they named the new pterosaur Cryodrakon boreas, or the cold dragon of the north winds. Habib, a fan of the TV show Game of Thrones, had also suggested Cryodrakon viserion, a reference to one of the shows dragons, in part because of its rise from the ice, and in part because the animal might have reached movie-monster proportions. In the meantime, North American paleontologists have been caught in a catch-22. It was a bit of a disappointment to them theyd spent weeks getting there and it didnt work, said marine biologist Huw Griffiths of the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the published study. At the coordinates 66 36 14 S 99 43 40 E the strange shape is clearly visible among the rock and snow in the hostile continent. There are not, nor. Rare 'Dragon-Skin' Ice Spotted During Antarctic Research Voyage By Kacey Deamer published May 10, 2017 Dragon skin occurs when strong winds continually lift surface ice, subsequently freezing. Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001) is a fragment of a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica on December 27, 1984, by a team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. At first, researchers believed the color was due to the red algae, but years later, it was revealed that the color is due to iron oxides, Forbes . I don't think it's a sea lion.". I recommend either SafetyWing or World Nomads. Most of these magnificent ice giants are either snow-capped and white, or have a clear turquoise color. Sea Pigs H.P. The ice shelves under Antarctica are hiding numerous things unknown to humankind. The near-perfect skeleton remains were located in a remote inland area of Antarctica. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. There are numerous conspiracy theories regarding Antarctica, and we wont get into them (though some are hilarious). Taissa Rodrigues, a paleontologist at Brazils Federal University of Esprito Santo who wasnt involved with the study, says that taking thin sections of Cryodrakon bones could reveal how the pterosaur grew from hatchling to adult. Their appearance is vastly different depending on which ocean you spot them in, but one thing is for certain: the sea pig is the stuff of nightmares, and definitely one of the weirdest things found in Antarctica. While it is most likely some kind of big whale species, it still has a menacing, creepy air to it. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies/University of Tasmania. Now, this enormous species of giant pterosaur part of a group known as azhdarchids finally has a name: Cryodrakon boreas, drawing from the ancient Greek words that translate to "cold dragon of the north winds." Whereas if youre stuck to a rock and youre waiting for food to come to you, then the one bit that comes past this year could go past you.. An illustration shows an elasmosaur swimming through rough waters. Bryozoans found in the habitat. Heres the science, Related: See the Mystery and Beauty of Fossils. But it wouldnt be AS exciting if they didnt also discover massive dinosaur bones, such as from the mosasaurus. Science correspondent Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs. Immediately, we'd get about 2 feet of sea level rise. "The climate is changing, and some key focal points are yet to be understood by science," Steven said. The discovery of what appear to be sponges in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of ice has biologists baffled. The difference is that you can actually see something resembling them on Google Earth (coordinates 795839.25S 815732.21W). The way it flies - it's like it's hovering in mid-air, just like a dragon. Many dragonflies are beautifully colored with greens, reds, yellows and blues. In the past 15 years, paleontologists have found more types of azhdarchids in France, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere, giving a much better reference for diversity within this pterosaur group. Horgan first spotted hints of the subsurface structure in 2020 while looking at a satellite photo of the area. All rights reserved, dug up from Canadas Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992, Fossil Pictures Capture the Mystery of Dinosaurs. However, despite being prominent in the satellite images, the groove initially eluded surface detection, Stevens said. .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}None of these are doing well, but one of themthe Thwaites Glacier in West Antarcticais rapidly crumbling. Again, while it isnt the most immediately terrifying phenomenon, these crazy things found in Antarctica are still unnerving. You get some strange things found in icebergs these days, and what better way to end a Halloween-themed article about Antarctica than with some classic skeletons? I'm a fun-loving blogger and coach from New Zealand, living in the south of Albania! Kacey Deamer is a journalist for Live Science, covering planet earth and innovation. And their immense patience in waiting for a meal to come to them. How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? These things turned out to be over a ton of fossils on the James Ross Island, ranging from 71 to 67 million years old. A lot of marine life would have needed to thrive there to satisfy the appetite of such a large creature, so the fact that these animals continued to exist so late in the Cretaceous adds to the evidence that the aquatic world, at least, was doing just fine right up until the sudden mass extinction.