Crystal Lake native among dino discoverers

Just months after announcing a major discovery that could change how scientists look at dinosaur evolution, a team of paleontologists including suburban native Nathan Smith is at it again with another big find.

Smith and his team this month announced the discovery of a new species of dinosaur, a 4- to 6-ton behemoth that roamed an area of present-day Antarctica about 190 million years ago.

The dinosaur, named glacialisaurus hammeri, was a plant-eating sauropodomorph, a long-necked plant-eater that measured about 20 feet long.

The find is significant in that it shows sauropodomorphs -- the largest animals to ever walk the earth -- lived not just in China and the Americas as initially believed.

"It lets us know that these animals were more broadly distributed than previously thought," said Smith, who grew up in Crystal Lake and graduated from Prairie Ridge High School in 1998. "It's another piece of the puzzle and gives us a better understanding of the full picture."

The foot, leg and ankle bones that led to the discovery initially were found about 16 years ago on Mount Kirkpatrick in Antarctica by Augustana College professor William Hammer.

About two years ago Smith, a paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, and a partner gave the bones another look and determined they belonged to a new species of dinosaur.

They named it after Hammer, not only because it was his discovery but because he was Smith's inspiration to become a paleontologist.

"He was a mentor," Smith said. "He's the one that got me interested in this."

Smith, who has traveled with Hammer to Antarctica on other digs, said he hopes to return in 2009 or 2010 to further explore the area rich in fossils.

The announcement of the new dinosaur comes about five months after Smith and co-workers revealed a new predinosaur species whose location indicated that dinosaurs and their predecessors lived alongside one another for millions of years.

That countered the prevailing wisdom that dinosaurs rapidly rose to their place as the dominant species on earth.