But we must start by talking about the figure of Roy Chapman Andrews , an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who is said to have inspired the creation of the character of Indiana Jones, the fictional archaeologist. Andrews worked at the American Museum of Natural History from a young age and began participating in zoological expeditions and excursions. In 1919, he organized a zoological expedition to Mongolia, which planted the seed for the idea of a larger expedition.
Back then, in the early 20th and late 19th centuries, Asia was believed to have been the cradle of mammals. That, after the extinction of the dinosaurs, it had been in Asia where they initially diversified. And this idea, for some naturalists, included the origin of our lineage.
With the idea of locating the origin of mammals in mind, and with the experience of Roy Chapman Andrews on board, the American Museum organized the first expedition to the Gobi Desert in 1921. By April 1922 the first fossils had been found, among them Psittacosaurus , a primitive dinosaur from the ceratopsian group (to which, for example, the popular Triceratops belongs). They called this prolific area “Flaming Cliffs”, which comes to mean something like “flaming or flaming cliffs” due to the effect of sunset light on its outcrops. In the summer of 1923 they returned to this area and the expedition’s findings were even more memorable. They found many skeletons of Protoceratops (another primitive ceratopsian) of different ages, from newborn hatchlings to fully grown adults. This finding was extremely important, since, until now, we knew little about the growth and development of dinosaurs. And suddenly, we had access to the entire growth sequence of this species. Even more historic was the discovery of eggs, organized in what must have been nests. Nests with eggs that never hatched and were buried more than 70 million years ago. The team assumed (erroneously, as we will see later) that they must be Protoceratops eggs, since this dinosaur was the most abundant in the area, and they had even found newborn babies.
In this expedition they also found fossils of theropod dinosaurs (the group of carnivores). The first of these was a very strange theropod that we told you about recently, Oviraptor philoceratops (whose name means “egg thief with a taste for horned faces”), which was considered to have been found red-handed. next to a Protoceratops nest. Over time it was discovered that the eggs were from Oviraptor itself, and more than being caught preying, fossilization caught it taking care of its nests.
Another carnivorous dinosaur found in those same sites by the second expedition was a small carnivorous dinosaur with an elongated snout, small sharp teeth and terrible claws. That first specimen consisted only of the skull and a claw. This more than partial skeleton was the one used by Henry F. Osborn in 1924 to define a species that, over time, has become one of the most popular dinosaurs: Velociraptor mongoliensis. Later expeditions came to find complete skeletons of this feared and beloved theropod dinosaur.
Another small Velociraptor-like theropod that was also found on that expedition was Saurornithoides (whose name means “lizard-like and bird-like”), also defined and published by Osborn in 1924.
Unfortunately, with the passage of time, relations between the American Museum of Natural History, or rather Andrews himself, and the Mongolian Government became strained. This happened in part due to the auction -unauthorized, obviously- of an egg with which it was tried to obtain financing for a new expedition. Due to this, the 1925 expedition was the last in which they stepped on the Gobi of Mongolia in that first stage, since they were expelled , and even accused of espionage. There were later expeditions until 1930, but they were limited to exploring Chinese territory without entering Mongolia.
From 1927 new expeditions began to take place, but this time the paleontologists involved were Swedish and Chinese. Then Poles and Mongols. Even Koreans. And in recent years, after reestablishing good relations, the American Museum itself has successfully returned to the Gobi.
News of these deposits still reach us, since it is a desert with an enormous extension, and where both Cretaceous and Cenozoic outcrops abound. So, for sure, we will talk about this magical place again.
References:
Osborn, H.F. 1924a. Three new Theropoda, Protoceratops zone, central Mongolia. American Museum Novitates, 144: 1-12.
Clark, J.M. et al. 2001. Two new oviraptorids (Theropoda:Oviraptorosauria), upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation, Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 21(2): 209-213.
Sanz, JL 2007. Dragon Hunters: History of the paleontologists who discovered and studied the dinosaurs. Ed. Ariel.
Gascó, F. 2021. That was not in my dinosaur history book . Guadalmazán.
