In Antarctica, for the first time, a dinosaur skeleton was found in a drawer

Dr Mark Evans, collections manager at BAS, spotted the fossil among thousands of specimens brought back from expeditions to Antarctica in recent decades.

It’s only when you start thinking, “What’s in this drawer?”, that sometimes you come across something and think, “Ah, that looks interesting.”

The specimen was originally collected on James Ross Island and the discovery was recorded in a field diary kept by geologist Dr. Mike Thomson.

In the year “Vertebrates of large reptiles,” they wrote, noting that it was 10 cm across, next to a small, neat sketch of the fossil presented on December 9, 1985.

Evans said the team that discovered it may have thought the fossil was a marine reptile.

But as soon as he saw it, Evans realized that the vertebrae looked very dinosaur-like. And the discovery date means it will be the first dinosaur fossil to be found on the continent.