Illustration of the Jurassic thyroid gland Scelidosaurus harrisonii. Photo credit: Jack Mayer Wood, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The only dinosaur bones ever found on the island of Ireland have been officially confirmed for the first time.
The only dinosaur bones ever found on the island of Ireland were officially confirmed for the first time by a team of US experts University of Portsmouth and Queen’s University Belfast under the direction of Dr. Mike Simms, curator and paleontologist at National Museums NI.
The two fossil bones were found by the late Roger Byrne, a teacher and fossil collector, who donated them to the Ulster Museum along with many other fossils. Analysis has confirmed that they are from early on law Rocks found in Islandmagee on the east coast of County Antrim.
The Ulster Museum has announced plans to display them when it reopens after the last round of restrictions were lifted.
Dr. Mike Simms of the National Museums NI with the theropod tibia on the left and the Scelidosaurus femur on the right. Photo credit: National Museums NI
Dr. Simms, National Museums NI, said, “This is an extremely significant discovery. The great rarity of such fossils is that most of Ireland’s rocks are the wrong age for dinosaurs, either too old or too young, making it nearly impossible to confirm the existence of dinosaurs on these shores. The two dinosaur fossils Roger Byrne found may have been swept alive or dead into the sea and sank to the Jurassic sea floor, where they were buried and petrified. ”
The article, published in the Procedure of the Association of Geologistsis part of a larger project to document Jurassic rocks in Northern Ireland and is based on many fossils in the collections of the Ulster Museum.
Scelidosaurus femur fossil. Photo credit: University of Portsmouth
The fossils were originally thought to be from the same animal, but the team was surprised to find that they were from two completely different dinosaurs. The study identified the type of dinosaur each was derived from using the latest technology available. One is part of a femur (thigh bone) of a four-legged herbivore called Scelidosaurus. The other is part of the tibia (lower leg bone) of a two-legged meat eater similar to Sarcosaurus.
The University of Portsmouth team, originally from Ballymoney researcher Robert Smyth and Professor David Martill, used high-resolution 3D digital models of the fossils discovered by Dr. Patrick Collins of Queen’s University Belfast for the analysis of the bone fragments.
Robert Smyth said, “When we analyzed the shape and internal structure of the bones, we found that they belonged to two very different animals. One is very dense and robust, typical of an armored herbivore. The other is slender, with thin bone walls and features only found in fast-moving two-legged predatory dinosaurs called theropods. ”
“Although these fossils are fragmentary, they offer valuable insights into a very important period in dinosaur evolution about 200 million years ago. At this time, dinosaurs really begin to dominate the world’s terrestrial ecosystems. ”
Professor Martill said, “Scelidosaurus keeps popping up in layers of the sea, and I’m beginning to believe that it could have been a coastal animal that might even eat seaweed like marine iguanas do today.”
Reference: “First Dinosaur Remains from Ireland” by Michael J. Simms, Robert SH Smyth, David M. Martill, Patrick C. Collins and Roger Byrne, November 11, 2020, Procedure of the Association of Geologists.
DOI: 10.1016 / j.pgeola.2020.06.005
