National Geographic Explorer was
walking through a small town in Morocco. A mysterious man with a mustache came up to him and showed him a box of fossils. One fossil caught the explorer’s eye. He picked it up. It was long and fl at. He had never seen one like it before. He thought that it might be part of a spine or a rib. He wasn’t sure. T e explorer is Nizar Ibrahim. He’s a
paleontologist, a scientist who studies fossils. He’d just finished collecting fossils in the nearby Sahara. Now, he was about to leave Morocco and head home to study them. Ibrahim looked at the fossil. T ere was
something about it. He thought it might be important, so he bought the box. Aſt er the sale, the man with the mustache disappeared. It wouldn’t be the last time the two met. Ibrahim didn’t think about the bone or
the man again for many years. Yet that bone would lead him on an amazing journey. In the end, he would discover one of the oddest dinosaurs that ever lived.
Picturing the Past Ibrahim is no stranger to dinosaurs. He has made them his life’s work. He oſt en travels to the Sahara to look for fossils. With these ancient bones, Ibrahim uses the scientific process to piece together the past. He studies the bones and observes how, when, and where they are found. He asks key questions to form a hypothesis, or explanation, for how these animals used to live. To others, the Sahara might look windy,
desolate, and dry. Yet when Ibrahim looks out across the desert, he sees something else. He pictures what this place looked like 95 million years ago. Instead of sand, he sees rivers and swamps teeming with life. T ere were giant turtles, huge crocodiles, and fish the size of cars. Here, fl ying reptiles filled the sky. T ree of the world’s largest predatory dinosaurs walked on land. He sees the most dangerous place in the history of the planet.
18 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
This fossil became a key clue to solving a dinosaur mystery.
Something Urgent Ibrahim has gone on many dinosaur digs in the Sahara. He has found the fossils of giant fish and winged reptiles. All of these creatures lived near the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs. Scientists call it the Cretaceous period. While digging one day, he received
a message from some paleontologists in Italy. T ese friends described a number of fossils they had seen in Italy. T ey thought Ibrahim would want to see and study them. Excited, Ibrahim went to Italy to meet his
friends. Several fossils were laid out for him on tables in the basement of a museum. He saw leg bones, ribs, and vertebrae. He also saw several long, fl at bones. His friends thought the bones may have come from Morocco. T ese bones looked familiar to him. T ey
looked a lot like the fossil he bought from the mysterious stranger. T ese bones reminded Ibrahim of
something else, too. T ey reminded him of some drawings and photos of a dinosaur that he had seen in a book when he was a child. As he looked at the fossils, a question started forming in his mind. Could the bones in Italy, his mystery fossil, and the drawings all be connected? Ibrahim was beginning to form a hypothesis.
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