You are likely familiar with fossils like this one, giant t-rex skeletons displayed in museums. However, that species was one of the last to live on planet Earth before the asteroid impact with researchers now saying that the earliest dinosaurs may never be uncovered.
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00:00You're likely familiar with fossils like this one, giant T-Rex skeletons displayed
00:08in museums.
00:09However, that species was one of the last to live on planet Earth before the asteroid
00:12impact with researchers now saying that the earliest dinosaurs may never be uncovered.
00:18Current fossils date back around 230 million years, but their genetics feature tons of
00:22diversity pointing to millions of years of evolution preceding them.
00:26This coupled with their geographic place of discovery seems to indicate we don't yet
00:29know where the dinosaur family started.
00:31That's due in large part to the conditions in which fossils form, with a skeleton having
00:35to be covered in mud so that it doesn't rot away, eventually mineralized instead.
00:40So what if the first dinosaurs lived and died in areas that didn't have a lot of mud?
00:43Or what if those areas became difficult to access for humans to find them?
00:47Well, a new paper posits the latter.
00:49With the researchers writing, paleontological expeditions to these regions may be less common
00:53as a result of the harsh environment of the Sahara and the inaccessibility of many areas
00:58of the Amazon.
00:59What's more, they say that colonialism and political instability in those regions pose
01:03continued issues for researchers, meaning until we overcome the issues of our own species,
01:08we may never be able to pinpoint the birthplace of dinosaurs.