These dragons from deep time are incredible creatures. They're bizzarre, they're beautiful, and there's very little we know about them.
Zmajevi iz davnine nevjerojatna su stvorenja. Bizarni su, predivni i malo znamo o njima.
These thoughts were going through my head when I looked at the pages of my first dinosaur book. I was about five years old at the time, and I decided there and then that I would become a paleontologist. Paleontology allowed me to combine my love for animals with my desire to travel to far-flung corners of the world.
Te su mi misli prolazile kroz glavu listajući stranice moje prve knjige o dinosaurima. Imao sam pet godina i tada sam odlučio da ću bit paleontolog. Paleontologija mi je omogućila da spojim svoju ljubav prema životinjama i želju za putovanjem u zabačene kutke svijeta.
And now, a few years later, I've led several expeditions to the ultimate far-flung corner on this planet, the Sahara. I've worked in the Sahara because I've been on a quest to uncover new remains of a bizarre, giant predatory dinosaur called Spinosaurus.
I sada, nekoliko godina poslije, vodio sam nekoliko ekspedicija u krajnje zabačeni dio planete, Saharu. Radio sam u Sahari jer sam bio u potrazi za novim ostacima bizarnog, divovskog dinosaura predatora Spinosaurusa.
A few bones of this animal have been found in the deserts of Egypt and were described about 100 years ago by a German paleontologist. Unfortunately, all his Spinosaurus bones were destroyed in World War II. So all we're left with are just a few drawings and notes.
Kosti te životinje ronađene su u egipatskoj pustinji i prije otprilike 100 godina opisao ih je njemački paleontolog. Nažalost, sve njegove kosti Spinosaurusa uništene su u Drugom svjetskom ratu. Ostalo je tek nekoliko njegovih crteža i bilješke.
From these drawings, we know that this creature, which lived about 100 million years ago, was very big, it had tall spines on its back, forming a magnificent sail, and it had long, slender jaws, a bit like a crocodile, with conical teeth, that may have been used to catch slippery prey, like fish. But that was pretty much all we knew about this animal for the next 100 years.
Iz tih crteža znamo da je taj stvor živio prije otprilike 100 milijuna godina, bio je velik, imao je visoke kralješke na leđima u obliku veličanstvenog jedra i dugačku, tanku čeljust, pomalo nalik na krokodila, s klinastim zubima koje je vjerojatno koristio za lov skliskog plijena poput ribe. I to je bilo otprilike sve što smo znali o toj životinji sljedećih 100 godina.
My fieldwork took me to the border region between Morocco and Algeria, a place called the Kem Kem. It's a difficult place to work in. You have to deal with sandstorms and snakes and scorpions, and it's very difficult to find good fossils there. But our hard work paid off. We discovered many incredible specimens. There's the largest dinosaur bone that had ever been found in this part of the Sahara. We found remains of giant predatory dinosaurs, medium-sized predatory dinosaurs, and seven or eight different kinds of crocodile-like hunters.
Terenski rad odveo me na granicu između Maroka i Alžira, na mjesto pod imenom Kem Kem. Nije tu lako raditi. Morate se boriti s pješčanim olujama, zmijama i škorpionima, vrlo je teško tamo pronaći dobre fosile. Ali naš se težak rad isplatio. Pronašli smo puno nevjerojatnih primjeraka. Ovo je najdulja kost dinosaura kad nađena u tom dijelu Sahare. Našli smo ostatke divovskih dinosaura predatora, srednje-velikih dinsosaura predatora i sedam ili osam različitih vrsta grabežljivaca nalik krokodilima.
These fossils were deposited in a river system. The river system was also home to a giant, car-sized coelacanth, a monster sawfish, and the skies over the river system were filled with pterosaurs, flying reptiles. It was a pretty dangerous place, not the kind of place where you'd want to travel to if you had a time machine.
Ti su se fosili nataložili u riječnom sustavu. Riječni sustav bio je stanište i divovskog Coelicantha veličine auta, čudovišnom pilanu, a nebo iznad riječnog sustava bilo je napučeno pterosaurima, letećim gmazovima. Bilo je to poprilično opasno mjesto, nije to baš mjesto koje biste htjeli posjetiti da imate vremenski stroj.
So we're finding all these incredible fossils of animals that lived alongside Spinosaurus, but Spinosaurus itself proved to be very elusive. We were just finding bits and pieces and I was hoping that we'd find a partial skeleton at some point.
Nalazili smo te nevjerojatne životinjske fosile koji su živjeli u vrijeme Spinosaurusaa, ali sam Spinosaurus činio se nedostižan. Nalazili smo samo komadiće i nadao sam se da ćemo u jednom trenutku naći djelomičan kostur.
Finally, very recently, we were able to track down a dig site where a local fossil hunter found several bones of Spinosaurus. We returned to the site, we collected more bones. And so after 100 years we finally had another partial skeleton of this bizarre creature. And we were able to reconstruct it.
Konačno, nedavno, uspjeli smo pronaći nalazište gdje je lokalni lovac na fosile pronašao kosti Spinosaurusa. Vratili smo se na nalazište i sakupili još kostiju. I tako smo nakon 100 godina konačno dobili još jedan djelomičan kostur tog bizarnog stvorenja. Mogli smo ga i rekonstruirati.
We now know that Spinosaurus had a head a little bit like a crocodile, very different from other predatory dinosaurs, very different from the T. rex. But the really interesting information came from the rest of the skeleton. We had long spines, the spines forming the big sail. We had leg bones, we had skull bones, we had paddle-shaped feet, wide feet -- again, very unusual, no other dinosaur has feet like this -- and we think they may have been used to walk on soft sediment, or maybe for paddling in the water. We also looked at the fine microstructure of the bone, the inside structure of Spinosaurus bones, and it turns out that they're very dense and compact. Again, this is something we see in animals that spend a lot of time in the water, it's useful for buoyancy control in the water.
Sada znamo da je Spinosaurus imao glavu pomalo nalik krokodilu, znatno drugačiju od ostalih dinosaura predatora, znatno drukčiju od Tiranosaura. Vrlo zanimljive informacije smo dobili od ostatka kostura. Imao je dugačku kralježnicu s kralješcima koji su oblikovali ogromno jedro. Našli smo kosti nogu, lubanje, stopala u obliku vesla, široka stopala -- također vrlo neobična, nijedan drugi dinosaur nema takva stopala. Smatramo da ih je koristio za hodanje po mekanom mulju ili možda za veslanje po vodi. Proučili smo i mikrostrukturu kostiju, unutrašnju strukturu kostiju Spinosaurusa i ispada da su vrlo guste i kompaktne. To je također karakteristika životinja koje provode mnogo vremena u vodi. Potrebne su za kontrolu plovnosti po vodi.
We C.T.-scanned all of our bones and built a digital Spinosaurus skeleton. And when we looked at the digital skeleton, we realized that yes, this was a dinosaur unlike any other. It's bigger than a T. rex, and yes, the head has "fish-eating" written all over it, but really the entire skeleton has "water-loving" written all over it -- dense bone, paddle-like feet, and the hind limbs are reduced in size, and again, this is something we see in animals that spend a substantial amount of time in the water.
Napravili smo CT-snimak svih kostiju i izgradili digitalni kostur Spinosaurusa. Kada smo promotrili digitalni kostur, shvatili smo da je to bio dinosaur kao nijedan drugi. Veći je od Tiranosaura i glava mu je prilagođena jedenju ribe, a cijeli je kostur prilagođen životu u vodi: guste kosti, stopala u obliku vesla, i kraći stražnji udovi, što je karakteristika životinja koje provode mnogo vremena u vodi.
So, as we fleshed out our Spinosaurus -- I'm looking at muscle attachments and wrapping our dinosaur in skin -- we realize that we're dealing with a river monster, a predatory dinosaur, bigger than T. rex, the ruler of this ancient river of giants, feeding on the many aquatic animals I showed you earlier on.
Dodali smo meso našem Spinosaurusu i promatrajući našeg Spinosura s dodatcima mišića te obloženog kožom, shvaćamo da se radi o vodenom čudovištu, dinosauru predatoru, većem od Tiranosaura, vladaru drevnih vodenih divova koji se hranio vodenim životinjima koje sam vam pokazao ranije.
So that's really what makes this an incredible discovery. It's a dinosaur like no other. And some people told me, "Wow, this is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. There are not many things left to discover in the world." Well, I think nothing could be further from the truth. I think the Sahara's still full of treasures, and when people tell me there are no places left to explore, I like to quote a famous dinosaur hunter, Roy Chapman Andrews, and he said, "Always, there has been an adventure just around the corner -- and the world is still full of corners." That was true many decades ago when Roy Chapman Andrews wrote these lines. And it is still true today.
I to je ono što ovo čini nevjerojatnim otkrićem. To je dinosaur kao niti jedan drugi. Ljudi su mi rekli: "Ovo je otkriće koje se događa jednom u životu. Nema više puno toga za otkriti na ovom svijetu." Uopće se ne slažem s time. Mislim da je Sahara još uvijek prepuna blaga i kada mi ljudi kažu da nema preostalih mjesta za istraživanje, citiram poznatog lovca na dinosaure Roya Chapmana Andrewsa koji je rekao: "Pustolovine uvijek čekaju iza ugla, a svijet je prepun uglova." To je vrijedilo prije mnogo desteljeća kada je Roy Chapman Andrews napisao te retke. A vrijedi i danas.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)