14 Embarrassing Ways to Lose an Important Dinosaur Fossil
European countries sure love to steal priceless artifacts from Africa to “keep them safe,” only to get them bombed to smithereens, don’t they?
Drowned in Sewage
Alcovasaurus was a big ol’ stegosaurus from the Late Jurassic period. Its type specimen (the fossil that a species is named for and described based on) was damaged when the University of Wyoming’s Geological Museum had some plumbing issues and a pipe burst.
Puff the Unfortunate Dragon
The Atychodracon wasn’t recognized as its own genus until over a century and a half after it was first discovered. In the interim, its museum was bombed into the ground during World War II. When it was classified and named in 2011, they combined the Greek words atychis (unfortunate) and drakon (dragon) to mourn the destruction.
Just Kinda Lost by a Paleontology Tourist
Joseph Channing Pearce was just some guy who had an interest in various science-y topics, but doesn’t seem to have been a specialist in any area. Among his collection was the badass-sounding “heart tooth,” which turned out to be the very first piece ever discovered of the long-necked herbivore Cardiodon. Dude just kinda misplaced it.
The Biggest Animal in History Just Disintegrated
It’s hard to believe the fact that the blue whale is probably the largest animal to ever exist on our planet. But the Bruhathkayosaurus, meaning “huge-bodied lizard,” is said to have come pretty darn close. While a few of its bones were first found and described in 1987, paleontologists came forward in 2017 to admit the things had just kind of crumbled into dust.
Lost in a Pile of Dodo Bones
Okay, you got us, the broad-billed parrot isn’t a dinosaur. But it is a freaky, primitive-looking and extinct creature whose holotype (the single specimen that’s the basis for the description of a species) is lost. They dredged it up from a swamp among a whole bunch of dodo bones, and just kinda lost track of it.
The Allies Killed the God Lizard of the Ocean
Aegirosaurus means “Aegir lizard with slender vertebrae” (Aegir, as we know, is a Teutonic ocean god). Since it was discovered and kept in modern day Germany, the Allied forces blew it da frick up in World War II.
Scientists Accidentally Built This Guy His Own Coffin
Gongxianosaurus was a big-ass sauropod from the Jurassic period. The researchers who discovered it thought it safest to leave it in the ground where they found it, and built a little exhibition hall around it. Well, that building collapsed and destroyed the holotype.
Never Keep All Your Aegyptosaurus Bones in the Same Place
Aegyptosaurus was a sauropod that lived in modern day Africa about 95 million years ago. Some Germans graciously took the holotype and a bunch of other fossils back home for safekeeping where they were all pulverized by Allied bombs in 1944.
Some Rich Jerk Gave It Away
The Erectopus should be a horny octopus, but it was actually a big scary theropod. The holotype sat in some rich guy’s private collection, and after his death, all his stuff was “disbursed.” We don’t know if Erectopus was bequeathed, auctioned off or shot out of a T-shirt cannon.
Hitler Got T. Rex’s Cousin Killed
Carcharodontosaurus, meaning “jagged toothed lizard,” was a theropod whose bones were quietly taken from Egypt by German paleontologists in 1914. They came clean a couple decades later, but the dope-ass skull they’d stolen was blown up by the British in an air raid on Munich in 1944.
Fire
The holotype of the Podokesaurus was kept in Mount Holyoke’s Williston Hall, which burned down in 1917. The dinosaur had become an unofficial mascot, and students led a search of the rubble, but no trace was ever found.
Fire Again
Portugal’s Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência burned down in 1978, taking with it the holotype of the Lusitanosaurus.
A Dude Drew a Picture and Then Threw It Out
Paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope bought a giant neck vertebra off a guy in 1877, and named the species A. fragillimus, meaning “very fragile.” The bone was preserved in notoriously crumbly mudstone, so after decades of debate over its location, scientists figured out that he probably just drew some pictures of it and discarded it.
Big Momma Got Cast Into a Dungeon
Massospondylus was a long-necked herbivore from the Early Jurassic period. Its holotype, a well-preserved skull and skeleton nicknamed Big Momma, was housed in the U.K.’s Hunterian Museum. When it was bombed by the Germans in 1941, a bunch of specimens fell into the museum’s dungeon, which subsequently flooded.
