Current Event 14

Tenzing Pixley

Core Biology C ODD

Current Event 14

Wednesday, June 5th, 2019

Tarabay, Jamie, and Genevieve Jia Ling. “He Was Looking for Opals. Instead He Found a New

Dinosaur Species.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/world/australia/lightning-ridge-dinosaur-fostoria.html.

In the New York Times article, He Was Looking for Opals. Instead He Found a New

Dinosaur Species by Jamie Tarabay and Genevieve Jia Ling, it focuses on one of the most startling scientific finds by a normal person in the several decades. Years ago, in 1984, an Australian miner by the name of Bob Foster was searching for opals but found something much more surprising. The remains of a dinosaur which was previously unknown, Fostoria, which is now named after him. One of the main identified remains was that of a vertebrae and that the organism ranged anywhere from 10 to 16 feet in length.

Aside from the fact that it was discovered unintentionally, the finding leaves great percussions on science as a whole. It shows us that there are still ancient species we have yet to discover, and just how little we know of the prehistoric world. It also shows that you do not have to be a “top-notch” archaeologist to make a big scientific discovery, and that these things can be found by chance, albeit on extremely rare occasions.

When reading the article, I found it very straightforward. Not in a bad way, as the information was presented in a way which made it easy to take in. It started off simple and cut straight to the point, which was executed very effectively. However, there were some downsides. One of which was a lack of further research. It mainly presented the key points of the finding, yet didn’t go in depth on theories about the creature’s habitat during its lifetime.