Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? The melting ice in Antarctica has revealed a skeleton of a mysterious creature - and the network believes it is a dinosaur. An illustration shows an elasmosaur swimming through rough waters. The male characters all stand on their own, being easily distinguishable from each other. Science correspondent Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs. Initially, the team thought their equipment was faulty. He studied Marine Biology at the University of Exeter (Penryn campus) and after graduating started his own blog site "Marine Madness," which he continues to run with other ocean enthusiasts. (GiMa38 / CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Accounts of Reptilian Monsters in Modern-Day New Guinea . By Garreth / November 21, 2021. The Maori monster Taniwha lives in the ocean but also lurks in the rivers, lakes, or watery caves of New Zealand. A huge skull discovered in China may be a new human species: Dragon Man. "It is a reminder about just how connected our whole planet is. IE 11 is not supported. There are not, nor. The researchers set up camp a couple of days before the record-shattering eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano in Tonga on Jan. 15. The weather controls all. "But what is clear is that great changes are afoot.". This cycle produces 10 times more than the average amount of sea ice formed in the coastal polynyas, Williams said. Now, this enormous species of giant pterosaur part of a group known as azhdarchids finally has a name: Cryodrakon boreas, drawing from the ancient Greek words that translate to "cold dragon of the north winds." Harry is a U.K.-based staff writer at Live Science. The mysterious skeleton of a creature has been found on Google Maps in Antarctica in footage which has since gone viral. Scientists have found microplasticssmall plastic debris about the size of a sesame seedin freshly fallen snow in Antarctica for the first time. Sometimes the ice freezes into these beautiful ornate patterns reminiscent of dragon scales. The new year once started in Marchhere's why, Jimmy Carter on the greatest challenges of the 21st century, This ancient Greek warship ruled the Mediterranean, How cosmic rays helped find a tunnel in Egypt's Great Pyramid, Who first rode horses? Both animals belong to a group known as the azhdarchid (azh-DAHR-kid) pterosaurs, which were notable for being mostly head and neck. Nearly 42,000 meteorites have been found in Antarctica by government funded expeditions, mainly by the U.S. and Japan. Sure, it would be cool (no pun intended) for creepy things found in ice like this to have been created by some sort of mythological ice giants. Some of these Antarctica scary facts have simple explanations, others not so much. He added: "I dont know if this recently thawed and this has been frozen for thousands of years or if this is something new. The remnants come from the final days of the dinosaurs on Earth, so these strange things in Antarctica are quite an amazing sight to see today! Lovecraft would have probably loved to see this interesting creature. You can see it for yourself at coordinates 63 256.73S 605732.38W on Google Earth. Dragonflies are members of the order Odonata. Haha `Deception Island indeed. However, sceptics were quick to claim that the remains look like a seal. Fact or fiction .An ancient species of dragon was found living in Antarctica? This Antarctica expedition focused on recovering large volume samples of the 2-plus-million-year-old ice discovered four years earlier. The difference is that you can actually see something resembling them on Google Earth (coordinates 795839.25S 815732.21W). And work on the bones unearthed over the past few decades has just begun; now that they are housed in a museum, OGorman says there is a lot of other research that can be done on this ancient specimen. Long COVID patients turn to unproven treatments, Why evenings can be harder on people with dementia, This disease often goes under-diagnosedunless youre white, This sacred site could be Georgias first national park, See glow-in-the-dark mushrooms in Brazils other rainforest, 9 things to know about Holi, Indias most colorful festival, Anyone can discover a fossil on this beach. Researchers needed a more complete specimen, and as it happened, William Zinsmeister of Purdue University had discovered a potential candidate on Seymour Islandjust south of the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsuladuring a 1989 expedition. Please be respectful of copyright. The animal would have weighed as much as 15 tons, and it is now one of the most complete ancient reptile fossils ever discovered in Antarctica. Most of them were remnants of ancient marine creatures, or even the ancestors of modern-day ducks. Its a huge area, but we have a tiny widow into it, Griffiths said. Three oval shaped motherships about 30 miles in diameter were discovered nearby revealing that the Pre-Adamites were extraterrestrial in origin, and had arrived on Earth about 55,000 years ago. Their arrival marked the completion of the Xuelong 2's maiden voyage.Along with her older sister, the Xuelong, China's newest Polar Class 3 icebreaker had steamed more than 70,000 nautical miles over the course of her expedition to Antarctica. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth. Weird Google Earth images appear to show a giant "dome" rammed in the ice and it's sent conspiracy theorists wild. In retrospect, that doesnt make them any less creepy. Heres how it works. ", JUST IN:Stonehenge builders branded just as clever as us. The researchers also unexpectedly discovered that the water column underground split into four or five distinct layers of water flowing in opposite directions. The flying reptile was said to have . The mysterious skeleton of a creature has been found on Google Maps in Antarctica in footage which has since gone viral. This creepy looking fall was named Blood Falls because of its deep color resembling blood. The stripes color can be blue, black, or green. Tullbergia seems to have persisted in the same place for . Its amazing, she says, just to see how far were going., Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Eco-friendly burial alternatives, explained. But it wouldnt be AS exciting if they didnt also discover massive dinosaur bones, such as from the mosasaurus. The way it flies - it's like it's hovering in mid-air, just like a dragon. It could be an old dinosaur. Unauthorized use is prohibited. According to National Geographic, the fifty-million-year-old sperm cells on the ancient worm's egg case were found in Antarctica. 15 Most Incredible Things Found In ANTARCTICA MAD LAB 3.86M subscribers Subscribe 6.3K Share Save 805K views 3 years ago Upon hearing the words "Arctic" and "found" in the same sentence, you. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Its huge expanses of white winterland are full of. A team of . It was a bit of a disappointment to them theyd spent weeks getting there and it didnt work, said marine biologist Huw Griffiths of the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the published study. There have been all sorts of things found in the arctic, from underground lakes and ancient fossils to prehistoric skeletons and enormous tunnels. When does spring start? In other words, theres a good chance we could be looking at some serious melting in the near future, thanks to this glacier and the ice around it. The partial skeleton that defines Cryodrakon was dug up from Canadas Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992. The discovery of the secret shrimp-infested structure had the team "jumping up and down for joy," Stevens added. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). That cavern is likely filled with air much warmer than the surrounding ice, triggering faster melting of the glacier than would happen otherwise. The seas around Antarctica are rich in marine (sea-living) animals, ranging from microscopic plankton to the largest animal ever to live on Earth, the blue whale. Nearly all of these have been found since 1976. "Were going to have our work cut out understanding what this means. All rights reserved. All 154 people on board survived after being rescued by nearby vessels. There are still animals out there that can break the rules that we have written for them.. The wreck of Endurance has been found in the Antarctic, 106 years after the historic ship was crushed in pack ice and sank during an expedition by the explorer Ernest Shackleton. Can we bring a species back from the brink? The roughly 5,000-year-old human remains were found in graves from the Yamnaya culture, and the discovery may partially explain their rapid expansion throughout Europe. It seems the animals attached to the boulder drifted there as microscopic larvae, and then grew into their adult forms: life is everywhere and the environment selects the species that eventually thrive., A future stage will be to determine if the animals are similar to those in the open ocean, or if they had evolved to live where they are now, Priscu said in an email. As a point of comparison, Habib visited Canadas Royal Tyrrell Museum to see the partial pterosaur skeleton dug up in 1992, whose limb bone is among the best preserved in the world. Dinosaurs once foraged beneath the Southern Lights in Antarctica By Howard Falcon-Lang Royal Holloway, London It may be hard to believe, but Antarctica was once covered in towering forests. What comes to your mind when you hear the word iceberg? This nearly whole, deep-black skull belongs to the most complete specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex on display in Europe, an individual nicknamed Tristan Otto. Also, meteorites that fall to Antarctica are preserved in ice for a long time. No, this is not the name of that one metal band your cousin listens to. New Moai statue that 'deified ancestors' found on Easter Island, Lab-grown minibrains will be used as 'biological hardware' to create new biocomputers, scientists propose, Ancient Roman 'spike defenses' made famous by Julius Caesar found in Germany, 'Building blocks of life' recovered from asteroid Ryugu are older than the solar system itself, The ultimate action-packed science and technology magazine bursting with exciting information about the universe, Subscribe today and save an extra 5% with checkout code 'LOVE5', Engaging articles, amazing illustrations & exclusive interviews, Issues delivered straight to your door or device. The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that famously birthed the world's largest iceberg in 2021. . In East Antarctica, there is a place where it looks like the continent is gushing out blood. NASA Found a Manhattan-Sized Cavern in Antarctica The cavern sits where nearly 14 billion tons of ice used to be, all of which melted in the last few years. This agreement was introduced in 1959 and has been endorsed signed by twelve countries including the United States, Russia, Japan and Australia, among others. While some previously known Aristonectes have weighed about 11 tons or so, most other elasmosaurs only come in at around five tons. The bones bear scratches and an embedded tooth that appear to be from a scavenger, most likely a relative of Velociraptor. The host shows the creatures front and rear limbs, as the curve of its spine and its skull. After drilling out the borehole, the scientists lowered a sediment corer and an attached video camera through the ice shelf. The abdomen is divided into ten segments. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Site Powered by Pix & Hue. The cavern first appeared in 2012 and most of the ice that once occupied it melted in the last three years. Slowly, over time, Antarctica befriended Bizzard, and found out her history. Thats awesome, Ryan, thanks a lot for sharing. Copyright 2023 Anita Hendrieka. "Seeing the effect of the Tongan volcano, which erupted thousands of kilometres away, was quite remarkable," Stevens said. Nightjars are found all around the world, with the exception of Antarctica and certain island groups such as the Seychelles. [If] the organisms evolved to live beneath ice shelves, they may provide us with a molecular clock that can be used to gauge past climate driven changes in Antarctic ice., The discovery shows that life can exist in environments where science suggests it should not: There are still things that we have to learn, Griffiths said. One of the weird things about Antarctica is that its very good at preserving things the Endurance was found very well preserved thanks to Antarcticas cold waters. Video shows discovery of sea-sponges living nearly half a mile beneath Antarctica ice. Bats and agaves make tequila possibleand theyre both at risk, This empress was the most dangerous woman in Rome. At first, researchers believed the color was due to the red algae, but years later, it was revealed that the color is due to iron oxides, Forbes . The team thinks the newly described heavyweight belongs to the genus Aristonectes, a group whose species have been seen as outliers to other elasmosaurs, since they differed so much from fossilized specimens discovered in the U.S. "This changes our current understanding and models of these environments," Stevens said. The climate of Antarctica can vary depending on where you are and the time of the season. All rights reserved, dug up from Canadas Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992, Fossil Pictures Capture the Mystery of Dinosaurs. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? "Having all those animals swimming around our camera means theres clearly an important ecosystem process happening there," Craig Stevens, a physical oceanographer at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Auckland, New Zealand, said in the statement. Meet the Great Eared-Nightjar, The Bird That Is Basically A Tiny Dragon. Most of these magnificent ice giants are either snow-capped and white, or have a clear turquoise color. I wouldnt find it creepy being on the bottom (or top) of the Earth, but some of those things Ive never heard of (sea spiders, striped icebergs) would give me chills. Life Science Environment 'Strange creatures' found under Antarctica. In late April 2020, two Chinese icebreakers made a port call in Shanghai to a large state media celebration. ", Largest fish nursery discovered beneath Weddell Sea in Antarctica, 'Giant MRI of Antarctica' reveals 'fossil seawater' under ice sheet, Rare wispy ice formations streak across the sea near Antarctica in beautiful satellite image. In 1911, scientists noticed an outflow of dark red water coming out of a glacier. Heres why each season begins twice. The secret ecosystem was found more than 1,600 feet below the surface. The noisy red and blue part in the bottom corner comes from ice breaking off into the sea. For years it was a mystery we didnt know if they were elasmosaurs or not, says Jos OGorman, a paleontologist with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) who is based at the Museum of La Plata near Buenos Aires. It took decades of struggling with the weather on a small, desolate island off the Antarctic Peninsula. Their appearance is vastly different depending on which ocean you spot them in, but one thing is for certain: the sea pig is the stuff of nightmares, and definitely one of the weirdest things found in Antarctica. The international science expedition is slowly making its way through the Antarctica's sea ice en route to the Ross Sea. Thanks for sharing. However, despite being prominent in the satellite images, the groove initially eluded surface detection, Stevens said. . . Tell us below which one of theweird things in Antarctica you are the most shocked about! YouTube channel Third Phase of Moon shared the anomaly back in August, sent to them by a viewer. NY 10036. Even in Antarctica, there were lots of happy elasmosaurs, Schulp says. In 2003, however, a team discovered that the color was a result of oxidized iron. To recognize the modern climate in the region where this pterosaur once roamed, they named the new pterosaur Cryodrakon boreas, or the cold dragon of the north winds. Habib, a fan of the TV show Game of Thrones, had also suggested Cryodrakon viserion, a reference to one of the shows dragons, in part because of its rise from the ice, and in part because the animal might have reached movie-monster proportions. [Collapsing Beauty: Image of Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf], "Imagine your standard ice-cube tray, filled once. Even more worrying to scientists beyond the cavern's existing is how quickly it appeared. Researchers drilled more than 1,600 feet under the Larsen Ice Shelf. PACKING TIP: Dont leave home without a solar powered battery pack so you can keep your devices connected at all times. Discovered in 2010 in Montanas famed Hell Creek Formation of the late Cretaceous, the 40-foot-long fossil took four years to excavate and prepare. True to their name, the Antarctic Icefish lives in the icy cold waters of the Arctic and has icy-looking blood to match. As such, Cez and Agness of eTramping were kind enough to provide some spooky, puzzling and altogether creepy things found in Antarctica. Dragon ice is basically pancake ice frozen on a larger sheet of ice. The new specimen is also very interesting because it dates so close to the end of the Cretaceousjust 30,000 years before the mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. The 'dragon-skin' ice in Antarctica researchers warn is a sign of 'dark chaos' in the planet's frozen oceans. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Dragonflies are widely spread throughout the world and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Over 14,000 meteorites have been found in the Sahara Desert of northern Africa, most since 1995, mainly by nomads and private collectors. Footage of the oddity was uploaded on the YouTube channel of MrMBB333 who regularly shares weird . In order to survive, the organisms would have to feed on floating material from other animals or plants, because it is impossible for plants to photosynthesize in the sunless seawater. "I would guess this is somewhere in the region of 15 to 20ft. They published . Well, in 2016 a team of researchers discovered some very interesting things found frozen in Antarctica. All rights reserved, finally unearthed the heaviest known elasmosaur, Find out about a plesiosaur fossil found with a baby preserved in its body, mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs, Would the dinosaurs have died out if not for that asteroid? Find out which creatures belonged in this group, how they grew to incredible sizes, and how they've captivated both scientists and storytellers alike. I don't think it's a sea lion.". Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, flanked by cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates flier Sultan Alneyadi, planned to strap . One of Earth's loneliest volcanoes holds an extraordinary secret. Thwaites holds back a large portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and a handful of nearby glaciers; if Thwaites disappears, we could see an additional eight feet of sea level rise from these sources, on top of the two feet from Thwaites itself. Dragon-skin ice is very rare, bizarre, evidence of a darker chaos in the cryospheric realm, not seen in Antarctica since 2007, saidIMAS researcher Dr. Taissa Rodrigues, a paleontologist at Brazils Federal University of Esprito Santo who wasnt involved with the study, says that taking thin sections of Cryodrakon bones could reveal how the pterosaur grew from hatchling to adult. (Though, it's been mentioned now, so kind of?) Not according to biology or history. The explorer in me thinks that there must still be plenty more to find! Though Q. northropi was described in 1975, only one of its limb bones got a detailed writeup; the scientists who oversaw the giants remains never got around to publishing the rest. But after refocusing the camera, they realized that the lens was being swarmed by tiny crustaceans known as amphipods. Heres how it works. Maybe not a spooky as the rest of the creepy facts about Antarctica on this list. But for [biologists], it is amazing because no one has ever seen these [organisms] before.. The groundbreaking promise of cellular housekeeping. Maybe one day you can work, and the next day you cannot because you have a snowstorm, OGorman says. Mining is illegal in Antarctica due to the Antarctic Treaty. Many dragonflies are beautifully colored with greens, reds, yellows and blues. Learn about the anatomical features that made their flight possible, how large some of these creatures grew, and which species was named after a vampire legend. The egg case belongs to the class Clitellata worm, species of which are long extinct which makes it quite an extraordinary finding. If you make a purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you, I will earn a small commission (for which I am very grateful). There are some people out there that would do anything to get their hands on some good scotch that's over a hundred years old. Please be respectful of copyright. Horgan first spotted hints of the subsurface structure in 2020 while looking at a satellite photo of the area. The 'Dragon-skin' ice is very rare and has not been spotted in Antarctica since 2007 . All Rights Reserved. But instead, they found that the roof was very uneven and had lots of steep undulations. Schulp has worked on some plesiosaurs from the Netherlands, but he says the aquatic reptiles are very different in the Southern Hemisphere. Dec 29, 2021, 6:55 AM PST. Future analyses could even peer deeper inside the pterosaurs bones. Related: Alarming heat waves hit Arctic and Antarctica at the same time. For 40 years, paleontologist Wann Langston worked off-and-on to complete the descriptionbut then he died in 2013, leaving the work unfinished. it has spawned numerous theories on what it could be. When does spring start? During this brutal interaction between the polar ocean and atmosphere, the seawater freezes as freshwater ice, according to the researchers. Lol. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. Regardless, sometimes you might get lucky and find some Antarctica mythical creatures. Unless you get to scary Antarctica where Polar Gigantism is a thing. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. .css-v1xtj3{display:block;font-family:FreightSansW01,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-weight:100;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-v1xtj3:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.1387rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-v1xtj3{line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.18581rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-top:0rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.2;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}60 Scientists Are Trying to Block the Sun, Particle Accelerator Reveals Beginning of Time, Earth's Inner Core Has Another Inner Core, 8 Questions About Turkey With an Earthquake Expert, Conspiracy: Blaming Weather Weapons for Earthquake, Scientists Just Discovered a Literal Hell, How the NFL Grew the Field for Super Bowl LVII, The Doomsday Clock Is at 90 Seconds to Midnight, Uh, Earth's Inner Core Just Stopped Spinning, Supercomputer: 27% of Earth's Life Dead by 2100, Why Bill Gates Keeps Buying Up So Much Farmland. The remains of a dinosaur described as the "closest thing we have to a real-life dragon" has been unveiled in . These animals can sniff it out. She has been put through hell and come out the other side . The excavation finally finished in 2017, yielding a substantial portion of the animals skeleton, which OGorman and his colleagues describe in their recent paper in Cretaceous Research. It was visible as a long depression, or groove, stretching across the ice a hallmark of an underground river. It wouldve been nice to have pictures accompanying this article. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. But the real danger is what happens after. 18 Antarctica's Blood Falls. Work could only happen for a few weeks in January and early February, and some years the dig didnt happen at all because of conditions and limited resources. After sending the camera down into the river, the team was surprised to learn that the cavern looked drastically different from what they had predicted. The Southern Hemisphereat least the plesiosaurscould definitely use some attention, he says. After a week, you get one tray of ice cubes. The data comes from NASAs Operation IceBridge, a program that flies radar-equipped planes over the poles to map out glaciers and ice sheets in three dimensions. Photograph by Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy. In the meantime, North American paleontologists have been caught in a catch-22. Associated mainly with wetland habitats such as ponds, lakes, rivers, bogs, and marshes, and usually thriving most in milder climates. As a species, they are present all around the planet, and can be as small as 1 millimeter in size. The remains, previously only ever found in North America, were. How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? Well send you our daily roundup of all our favorite stories from across the site, from travel to food to shopping to entertainment. Glad to know that your list of spooky things is as far as it goes (or is it?). What we find by visiting the coordinates 7200' 36.00'' S, 168 34' 40.00'' E is a mysterious face in the ice - seemingly complete with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. The discovery of what appear to be sponges in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of ice has biologists baffled. It is the southernmost continent and is where the South Pole is located. Lovecraft would have probably loved to see this interesting creature. The geologists used hot-water equipment to drill the borehole through more than half a mile of the ice shelf, on the southern edge of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. The flying reptile had a wingspan of at least 16 feet and may have grown to a wingspan of up to 33 feet, the size of its relative Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Its amazing that in the age of 50+ megapixel quality images we can still have grainy photos that yield Sasquatch or UFO-hunts on the Internet. The continent is rapidly melting, and a large chunk of the snow and ice is held back from the ocean only by an array of glaciers and ice shelves guarding the coasts.