Dinosaurs crossed oceans! Let’s find out how.

Fossils of a new duckbill dinosaur have been discovered in Africa. The discovery shows that the species must have once travelled hundreds of kilometres across oceans to reach Africa.

The fossil was discovered in rocks in a mine in Morocco. It is about 66 million years old and lived during the Late Cretaceous Period.

The new dinosaur is called Ajnabia odysseus. It is a member of the plant-eating duckbill dinosaur family or Hadrosaur. These dinosaurs had duck-like bills, hence the name.

Compared to some other duckbill dinosaurs, the Ajnabia was slightly smaller. It measured about three metres (the size of a pony).

Duckbill dinosaurs evolved in North America and later spread to South America, Asia and Europe.

So, experts were puzzled at how the dinosaur ended up in Africa. During the Late Cretaceous Period, Africa was an island continent and surrounded by the ocean.

They think that the Ajnabia duckbill dinosaur must have reached Africa by rafting on debris (waste), floating, or swimming across the ocean. While this sounds amazing, there seems to be no other explanation as to how they got there. And so scientists believe that dinosaurs crossed oceans when they traveled.

Previous studies have shown other animals, like monkeys, have also crossed oceans to get to other continents. However, this is the first possibility of dinosaurs crossing oceans.

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