September 22, 2016:

by The Siberian Times reporter

Discovery is 'in a location where dinosaurs confounded extinction, living for a few million years longer than elsewhere on the planet'.

Significant new finds have been made by paleontologists from Tomsk State University this summer with the unearthing of a cluster of 'baby' dinosaurs all at a site in Kransoyarsk region.

The location where the fossils were found in a ravine near the Bolshoy Kemchug River. In the Cretaceous era this was the site of a major river and the remains of the infant raptors were washed downstream to a dinosaur graveyard, it is believed.

Stepan Ivantsov, of the Laboratory for Mesozoic and Cenozoic Continental Ecosystems at Tomsk State University, said: 'We have an assumption that in Early Cretaceous times in the southeast of Western Siberia there were some dominant species of large predatory dinosaurs like Allosaurus or large Dromaeosauridae, up to three metres tall.

'The reasons are not clear yet. Perhaps it was a kind of 'kindergarten' - an area where the babies appeared and spent the first stage of their life.'

Another hypothesis is that the newly found 'babies' are actually another - and possibly new - type of dinosaur, he said.

Dr Ivantsov and his colleagues are also working on a theory that a 'refugium' existed close to this site - known as Bolshoy Kemchug-4 - where some species of the Jurassic period (which ended about 145 million years ago) survived into the Cretaceous era.

In the same area where the carnivorous dinosaurs were found, the scientists have discovered the remains of herbivorous giants. 'At the moment we can say that the Stegosaurus definitely lived here: we have found its spike and some teeth.

'A feature of this family of herbivorous dinosaurs were the bony plates on its back and the two pairs of spikes on the tail. At the site Bolshoy Kemchug-4 these animals were dominant, which is not typical for the Lower Cretaceous deposits of Western Siberia.'

Here, Professor Alexander Averyanov will work on determining the species found at Bolshoy Kemchug, answering the the question: was this a 'kindergarten' or a place where a breed of mini-dinosaurs lived?

The site on this remote river is inaccessible no route in by road or helicopter due to a lack of landing space. The scientists reached the dinosaur graveyard by kayak.

'We have an assumption that in Early Cretaceous times in south-eastern Western Siberia there were some dominant species of large predatory dinosaurs like Allosaurus (top) or large Dromaeosaurids (bottom), up to three metres tall'. Pictures: Wikimedia Commons