It was 200 years ago that quarry workers in the UK began to find giant bones under the ground, and naturalist and theologian William Buckland first theorized the concept of dinosaurs. Around 20 years later the dinosaur nomenclature was finally officialized, with over 2,000 species now being recognized since. So how much more is there left to discover?
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00:00 [Music]
00:03 It was 200 years ago that quarry workers in the UK began to find giant bones under the ground,
00:08 and naturalist and theologian William Buckland first theorized the concept of dinosaurs.
00:14 Around 20 years later, the dinosaur nomenclature was finally officialized,
00:17 with over 2,000 species now being recognized since.
00:21 So how much more is there left to discover?
00:23 Recent finds in China have not only produced new and more complete fossils than ever before,
00:28 they have also changed previous conceptions of what some of these creatures looked like.
00:32 Some of the finds have included feathers and proto-feathers.
00:35 And just this year in Patagonia in Argentina,
00:37 paleontologists discovered the remains of quite possibly the largest plant-eating dinosaur to date.
00:42 Experts say the long-necked creature, now dubbed Argentinosaurus,
00:45 would have been around 115 feet long head to tail and weighed around 166,000 pounds.
00:51 Researchers are still finding new clues about why the dinosaurs disappeared as well.
00:56 It wasn't until the 1980s that experts finally theorized that an asteroid hit Earth 66 million
01:01 years ago and began their extinction. However, a study in 2022 added to that,
01:06 suggesting that a period of mega-volcanoes was the second hit of a one-two punch that did in the
01:11 dinosaurs. Simply put, there is seemingly no end to new discoveries with regards to the prehistoric
01:17 beasts.