0:00:00.988,0:00:05.701
These dragons from deep time[br]are incredible creatures.

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They're bizzarre,

0:00:07.146,0:00:08.856
they're beautiful,

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and there's very little[br]we know about them.

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These thoughts were going[br]through my head

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when I looked at the pages of[br]my first dinosaur book.

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I was about five years old at the time,

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and I decided there and then[br]

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that I would become a paleontologist.

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Paleontology allowed me [br]to combine my love for animals

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with my desire to travel to [br]far-flung corners of the world.

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And now, a few years later,[br]I've led several expeditions

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to the ultimate far-flung corner [br]on this planet, the Sahara.

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I've worked in the Sahara because[br]I've been on a quest

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to uncover new remains of[br]a bizarre, giant predatory dinosaur

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called Spinosaurus.

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A few bones of this animal[br]have been found

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in the deserts of Egypt

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and were described about 100 years ago[br]by a German paleontologist.

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Unfortunately, all his Spinosaurus bones[br]were destroyed in World War II.

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So all we're left with are just[br]a few drawings and notes.

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From these drawings,

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we know that this creature, which lived [br]about 100 million years ago,

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was very big,

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it had tall spines on its back,[br]forming a magnificent sail,

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and it had long, slender jaws, [br]a bit like a crocodile,

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with conical teeth,

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that may have been used [br]to catch slippery prey, like fish.

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But that was pretty much [br]all we knew

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about this animal for the next 100 years.

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My fieldwork took me to the border region[br]between Morocco and Algeria,

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a place called the Kem Kem.

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It's a difficult place to work in.

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You have to deal with sandstorms[br]and snakes and scorpions,

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and it's very difficult to find[br]good fossils there.

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But our hard work paid off.

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We discovered many incredible specimens.

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There's the largest dinosaur bone

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that had ever been found[br]in this part of the Sahara.

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We found remains of giant[br]predatory dinosaurs,

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medium-sized predatory dinosaurs,

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and seven or eight different kinds[br]of crocodile-like hunters.

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These fossils were deposited[br]in a river system.

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The river system was also home [br]to a giant, car-sized coelacanth,

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a monster sawfish,

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and the skies over the river system[br]were filled with pterosaurs,

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flying reptiles.

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It was a pretty dangerous place,

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not the kind of place where you'd want[br]to travel to if you had a time machine.

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So we're finding all these [br]incredible fossils of animals

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that lived alongside Spinosaurus,

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but Spinosaurus itself proved[br]to be very elusive.

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We were just finding bits and pieces

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and I was hoping that we'd find[br]a partial skeleton at some point.

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Finally, very recently,

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we were able to track down a dig site

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where a local fossil hunter found[br]several bones of Spinosaurus.

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We returned to the site,[br]we collected more bones.

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And so after 100 years we finally[br]had another partial skeleton

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of this bizarre creature.

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And we were able to reconstruct it.

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We now know that [br]Spinosaurus had a head

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a little bit like a crocodile,

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very different from other [br]predatory dinosaurs,

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very different from the T. rex.

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But the really interesting information[br]came from the rest of the skeleton.

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We had long spines,

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the spines forming the big sail.

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We had leg bones, we had skull bones,

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we had paddle-shaped feet, wide feet --

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again, very unusual, no other[br]dinosaur has feet like this --

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and we think they may have been[br]used to walk on soft sediment,

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or maybe for paddling in the water.

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We also looked at the fine[br]microstructure of the bone,

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the inside structure of Spinosaurus bones,

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and it turns out that they're[br]very dense and compact.

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Again, this is something we see in animals[br]that spend a lot of time in the water,

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it's useful for buoyancy [br]control in the water.

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We C.T.-scanned all of our bones[br]and built a digital Spinosaurus skeleton.

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And when we looked [br]at the digital skeleton,

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we realized that yes, this was[br]a dinosaur unlike any other.

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It's bigger than a T. rex,

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and yes, the head has "fish-eating"[br]written all over it,

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but really the entire skeleton has[br]"water-loving" written all over it --

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dense bone, paddle-like feet,[br]and the hind limbs are reduced in size,

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and again, this is something[br]we see in animals

0:04:38.672,0:04:41.551
that spend a substantial amount [br]of time in the water.

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So, as we fleshed out our Spinosaurus --

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I'm looking at muscle attachments[br]and wrapping our dinosaur in skin --

0:04:50.268,0:04:54.148
we realize that we're dealing[br]with a river monster,

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a predatory dinosaur, bigger than T. rex,

0:04:56.477,0:04:59.253
the ruler of this ancient river of giants,

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feeding on the many aquatic animals[br]I showed you earlier on.

0:05:02.503,0:05:05.369
So that's really what makes this[br]an incredible discovery.

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It's a dinosaur like no other.

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And some people told me, "Wow,[br]this is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

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There are not many things left[br]to discover in the world."

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Well, I think nothing could be [br]further from the truth.

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I think the Sahara's [br]still full of treasures,

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and when people tell me there are[br]no places left to explore,

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I like to quote a famous dinosaur hunter,[br]Roy Chapman Andrews,

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and he said, "Always, there has been[br]an adventure just around the corner --

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and the world is still full of corners."

0:05:35.896,0:05:37.815
That was true many decades ago

0:05:37.815,0:05:39.857
when Roy Chapman Andrews[br]wrote these lines.

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And it is still true today.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)