Dinosaur discoveries in Ireland are a ‘needle in a haystack’

Finding dinosaur fossils on the island of Ireland is tougher than discovering a “needle in a haystack”, the curator of geology at National Museums Northern Ireland has mentioned.

But the one two ever to have been discovered within the proverbial haystack can be on show in Cork for the subsequent six months.

Fossil collector Roger Byrne discovered fossilised bones of two separate dinosaur species on the identical seaside in Islandmagee, County Antrim, greater than 4 many years in the past.

From Sunday, they are going to be on show as a part of an exhibition at Glucksman Gallery in University College Cork (UCC), the place for the primary time the general public also can see almost 300 fossils from elsewhere.

The fossils are from 200 million years in the past, that means these dinosaurs roamed Earth in the course of the Jurassic interval.

Dr Mike Simms, from National Museums Northern Ireland, advised BBC News NI that Ireland is an unlikely candidate for dinosaur-related discoveries as a result of “we have the wrong sort of rocks”.

“Most of the rocks that would contain dinosaurs that would be of the right age, we don’t have,” he mentioned.

“They were eroded away long ago, so we’re very, very lucky to have these.

“Most of the rocks we now have which might be the correct age for dinosaurs had been deposited out at sea.”

The fossils are normally on display at the Ulster Museum but they are being loaned to UCC.

“There can be huge, spectacular, skeleton casts on this exhibition in Cork however alongside them can be these little bits of bone,” mentioned Dr Simms.

“I feel it is an ideal alternative as a result of Cork is kind of a good distance away, so it is nice that they get all the way down to Cork for six months and other people can respect them there.”

Mr Byrne taught at a school in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, and was “a really eager, enthusiastic fossil collector” who was “meticulous”.

He found the bones in 1980 and 1981, on a beach near the Gobbins in County Antrim.

Dr Simms, who met him a few times, said he was a talented artist who drew the dinosaur bones he found.

“He was a extremely distinctive fossil collector – an excellent eye – as a result of these bones are mainly quite rounded black pebbles and he discovered them on a seaside that was coated with black pebbles.”

A scientific examine involving Dr Simms and the universities of Portsmouth and Queen’s in Belfast confirmed the origins of the bones for the primary time in 2020.

One is part of the lower leg bone of a carnivore similar to Sarcosaurus; the other is from the upper leg bone of a Scelidosaurus, a four-legged herbivore.

“It’s a unprecedented discover actually, to search out two totally different dinosaurs in a rustic which actually we should not have,” Dr Simms said.

So could there be more fossils on Islandmagee beaches?

“Quite a number of different folks and Roger scoured it fairly rigorously,” Dr Simms mentioned.

“I do not assume there was actually that a lot left after Roger had been again. He went again many instances and his assortment was donated to us after he died.”

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin, who will open the Domain of the Dinosaurs exhibition on Sunday, called it “a improbable collaboration of science and the humanities that actually captures the creativeness”.

The Islandmagee fossils can be joined by skeletal casts of the eight-metre-long apex predator Megalosaurus, the herbivores Scelidosaurus and Iguanodon, and the marine reptiles Ichythyosaurus and Plesiosaurus.