Detecting complete bone fossils of a dinosaur

Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully restored the fossilized skeleton of an immature dinosaur from 70 million years ago.

Scientists found fossil bones of the Tarbosaurus dinosaur, a large carnivorous dinosaur, in a sandstone block they dug in August 2006 in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia.

According to Takuji Yokoyama, spokesperson for Hayashibara Natural Science Museum in Japan, co-organizer of joint research projects between Japan and Mongolia: 'We are lucky to find things turned out to be one. Complete skeleton, featuring all the important parts of a dinosaur.

After two years of recovery, scientists discovered fossil skeletons missing only one neck bone and the head of the tail bone.

The fossil bones of immature dinosaurs are often found in a state that is no longer intact because they are destroyed by the weather, or torn into pieces by other carnivores. Therefore, this latest discovery opens up opportunities for scientists to learn more about dinosaur development.

The newly discovered dinosaur fossil is believed to be a 5-year-old, 2m-long dinosaur. Adult dinosaurs of this species are thought to be more than 12m long.

There is no clear gender of this dinosaur. Scientists have found its fossil bone at the geography that was formed 70 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Japanese scientists and colleagues from the Center for Paleontology, the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, have jointly unearthed this dinosaur fossil in the Gobi Desert since 1993.