Local experts silent on dinosaur new find

                            

Local experts in paleontology are still silent on the recently discovered massive fossil of a giant, yet rare, dinosaur that once lived in Tanzania about 100 million years ago.

Officials at the Natural History Museum in Arusha and the Olduvai Gorge Museum in Ngorongoro said although they were aware of the new find, they could not tell where the remains were or if they had been excavated.

"I have heard of this but at this point I cannot tell you anything because I was not involved in that research" said an archaeological expert at the Natural History Museum, declining further details as he was not the spokesperson of the facility.

The centerpiece of the world so far oldest dinosaur in a museum in Germany. (File Photo)

He, however, indicated that the museum, which was specifically put up for the archaeological relics like the fossils, was ready to receive them because it has purposely build rooms for preservation.

The museum, located at the Old German boma in the heart of Arusha, had hundreds of fossil remains, mainly those found at Olduvai Gorge and other sites along the Great Rift Valley in Arusha and Manyara regions.

The official said detailed information on the rare dino find in Rukwa Rift Basin south west of the country could be sourced from senior archaeological experts at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and the National Museum.

However, he affirmed; "Portable archaeological remains are normally preserved at the National Museums and other museums across the country. Non-portable ones are preserved at their respective sites." Another prehistory researcher at the Olduvai Museum, one Kashaija told this newspaper over the phone from Ngorongoro last week that he was aware of the Lake Rukwa find but have not details because it was not carried out by researchers working at Olduvai.

He confirmed last year a team operating there excavated remains of what is believed to be a dinosaur just close to the museum and the world-famous Olduvai Gorge which apparently revolutionized the Origin of Man studies with the discovery of Nutcracker Man skull in 1959 by the Leakey family.

The discovery of a dinosaur fossil at Olduvai in 2013 was made by a team of researchers working under the Oldupai Landscape Paleoanthropology Project (OLLA) headed by Prof. Fidelis Masao of UDSM and Prof. Robert Blumenschine
from the United States.

Rukwatitan bisepultus is the name given to the Rukwa Rift discovery by the paleontologists who described it as a rare discovery of a new dino species in sub-Saharan Africa where far fewer dinosaur fossils are discovered compared to South America.

Global science wire agencies reported last week that the extinct Rukwatitan weighed between 10 and 15 tonnes - about as much as two elephants and that it could have been a meat-eater like many other species of dinosaurs.

The discovery has come as Tanzania is still negotiating with the German authorities on the return to the country of the remains of Tendaguru which were taken since the 1930s and preserved in a Berlin museum.

Incidentally, the search for Tendaguru fossils inspired the late Dr. Louis Leakey to come to East Africa in the 1930s to look for more remains of the dinosaurs but ended up with the famous Olduvai skull of Man's closest ancestor, Zinjathropous or Australopithecus Boisei in 1959.