Most UNBELIEVABLE Dinosaur Fossil Discoveries!

hi it's Katrina from fighting dinosaurs frozen in time to ancient snakes with feet here are ten of the most amazing fossil discoveries number ten the t-rex in 2005 something that was previously thought to be impossible was found during an archeological dig in Montana and it would take eight years before scientists could explain what had happened the discovery was a leg fossil of an adolescent t-rex but inside it there was some tissue that was described as being soft transparent and flexible this was completely unexpected because it had previously been thought that the proteins in soft tissue will completely degrade in less than a million years even in the best conditions so how a 68 million year old sample survived with soft tissue was a mystery analysis of the material confirmed that it was soft tissue from a dinosaur and that it was very similar to bird collagen it then encouraged researchers to test other fossils and they found traces of soft material and more than half of the samples it's just something they had never bothered to look for before it's thought that the reason this preservation is possible is because of iron that's released from blood particles following death tiny nano particles are formed and it starts to act like formaldehyde preserving tissue for longer than would otherwise be expected the discovery has had far-reaching consequences for paleontological science because with this new material to study far more can be learned about the biology of dinosaurs and we might just be one step closer to the real Jurassic Park number nine tail and amber with only fossils to go by it's difficult to know exactly what species look like a long time ago but a discovery in 2015 helped us get a much better idea within a lump of amber that was on sale at a market in Mayan Mar was a perfectly preserved prehistoric tale complete with feathers it was dated back to the mid Cretaceous period around 99 million years ago and contains eight vertebrae from the juvenile theropod the tail is long and flexible and feathers run down each side of it because of this structure researchers are certain that the feathers come from a dinosaur and not a more recent bird scans the specimens show that the animal would have been chestnut brown in color and have also shed light into the development of feathers they don't have a well-defined central shaft like those seen today but have fine branches that are found in the feathers of birds which means that these structures developed before the central shafts we know that modern bird species are the closest relatives to the dinosaurs that are still alive and discoveries like this support the idea that the ancient reptiles were covered in feathers and probably looked a lot different from how we picture them number eight Homo cerium it had long been thought that home aetherium a type of saber-tooth cat from Europe had gone extinct about three hundred thousand years ago but analysis of a discovery in 2000 forced researchers to rethink everything a fishing trawler in the North Sea near the Netherlands picked up something peculiar in one of its nets which turned out to be a jawbone from one of the creatures radiocarbon dating found it to be 28,000 years old which proves they were still alive more than two hundred and fifty thousand years later than had been thought it's not clear why there's such a gap in the fossil record for the cats but researchers think it could be evidence of migration they are closely related to his species from North America the Smilodon that's often thought of when talking about saber-tooth cats it's therefore possible that they originally did die-off in Europe but migrated back over the bering land bridge or they just dwindle to such low numbers that very little evidence was left in the fossil record number seven Brockie Lofa soros one of the rarest fossils found in recent times was of a Brachiosaurus canadensis it was found in a canyon wall in montana in the year 2000 and it took a demolition crew to fully remove the 18-foot piece of stone from the cliff fossils of the 77 million year old duck-billed dinosaur are hardly ever found but this one was even more special because its skin had also fossilized this preserved the internal organs so it's heart and even stomach contents can be studied which gives an unusual insight into the anatomy of the creature the fossil itself weighs six and a half tons and it has been given the nickname Leonardo because of some graffiti that was on the rock near where it was discovered easy way to name stuff good thing the graffiti didn't say something else at the time of discovery it was only the fourth mummified dinosaur fossil two have ever been found and x-rays have been used to get a look at what's inside so far researchers found evidence of 200 parasites ferns conifers magnolias and pollen from 40 plant species in the stomach as well as images of its heart and liver the presence of a bird-like crop which pre digests food in the neck and even clues as to how it died a bite from a large predator number six hematite - the earth is believed to be around 4.5 billion years old but a recent discovery has found that it wasn't too long until the first signs of life began to emerge very few places on the planet have any rocks that are older than three billion years but the places where some survived are the ideal hunting ground for ancient life a research team was looking at a three point seven seven billion year old outcrop in Quebec Canada and found what they think is the oldest evidence of life to have ever been found that's more than 300 million years older than the previous record-holder by looking at thin slices of rock from the formation they identified tiny tubes and structures that were made from hematite which is a form of iron oxide these are similar to structures found in more recent fossils that were created by iron oxidizing bacteria in underwater thermal vents it'll be tough to find anywhere that contains fossils that are any older than this so it's possible that these tubes will be the earliest evidence of life that's ever found number five four-legged snake the evolutionary history of snakes has long been of interest to researchers specifically whether they emerge from the oceans without limbs or whether this was an adaptation that developed later on fossils to prove one way or another were proving to be elusive but one discovery that was announced in 2015 changed all that the fossil is of a serpent-like creature with a short tail and a long body that could have moved like the snakes of today it showed signs of being a brewer which means it was land-based and crucially it had small limbs the problem with this fossil though is that it came from a private collection without any data detailing where it originated from without this crucial piece of evidence it's not the game-changing discovery that many were hoping for while the rock around it appears to point towards the Credo formation a place in Brazil that dates back to 103 million years ago there are further questions about whether it was legally acquired usually specimens like this aren't studied by the scientific community to ensure that fossil collectors adhere to international laws so is hoped that another one with full provenance will be found soon to be able to answer the mystery once and for all the number for Protoceratops and velociraptor one of the most stunning fossils ever to be found was discovered by a team that was looking at white sandstone cliffs in the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia dated to around 80 million years ago it's of two dinosaurs a velociraptor and a Protoceratops which were fighting each other when they were suddenly buried by a sand flow despite the Velociraptor being a vicious predator and the Protoceratops being an herbivore both were causing as much damage to each other the velociraptors foot claw was embedded in the neck of its prey close to where the blood flow to its head would have been while the Protoceratops look like it has bitten and broken the right arm of its attacker it's incredibly rare to find fossils that show moments of action like this and helps us to understand their behavior in a way that singular fossils are unable to number three baleen whale after originally having been found in 1978 and dismissed as unimportant scientists returned to a fossil 30 years later and realized it was far more significant than what was first thought and had been discovered in a canyon in Palos Verdes in LA and is believed to be about 14 to 16 million years old the reason why it's so important is that it's from a baleen whale and includes a section of baleen the jaw bone and the skull weighing more than 1,000 pounds it's one of only 20 baleen whale fossils that have ever been found which makes them incredibly rare the boy who first retrieved the fossil and took it home with the assistance of his friends realized what it could be after seeing reports in the local newspaper of another fossil that had been found in a similar place nearby now an adult he enlisted the help of the local sheriff to help lift it onto a truck so it could be taken to the Natural History Museum where it now sits in a proud place within their collection number two the ichthyosaur during the time of the dinosaurs the oceans were just as dangerous as the land and one of the most dominant predators to ever swim the seas was the ichthyosaur they evolved from land-based lizards who turn to the water around 250 million years ago and the discovery in China of a fossil has given much clearer details of how they gave birth it was of a pregnant mother who died during childbirth with three embryos still stuck inside the interesting thing to scientists is that one of the young had partially emerged and was coming out headfirst this is the opposite way to other air breathing aquatic animals that give birth to live young because it increases the chances of them suffocating before they are completely separate the fact that Ixia Soares gave birth in this way is seen as proof that reptiles only developed the ability to give live birth on land and in this case retained it when they returned to live in the ocean number one the NADA soar in 2011 as a heavy machine operator dug up the ground at the millenium mine in Alberta he hid something that was noticeably harder than the surrounding rock strange colored lumps of rock started coming out and he realized he had found something unusual something that turned out to be a very rare type of fossil the rows of sandy Brown disks were collected together and taken to a local warehouse where researchers reconstructed the fossil which was a remarkably preserved not a sore related to other armored dinosaurs like ankylosaurus it was incredibly well preserved something that's thought to have happened because it was rapidly buried undersea usually just bones and teeth are fossilized but in this case far more was found it was virtually the entire dinosaur as it would have been the bumpy armor plates are still visible across the skull pieces of flesh are still there and even the scales can be seen on its foot the previously unknown species would have been 18 feet long and weighed 3,000 pounds when it was alive and even though was an herbivore it had enough armor plating that it would have held its own in a fight against just about anything thanks for watching do you collect fossils which one of these was your favorite let me know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe before you leave see you next time bye

Channel: Origins Explained

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Keywords: origins explained, 10 most unbelievable dinosaur fossil discoveries, fossil discoveries, dinosaur fossils, dinosaur fossil discoveries, unbelievable discoveries, archaeological discoveries, amazing discoveries, mysterious discoveries, strange discoveries, strange fossils, weird fossils, amazing fossils, unbelievable fossils, dinosaur skeletons, ancient archaeological discoveries, dinosaur discoveries, origins explained top 10

Id: srnfxhPMGUw

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 19 2019