Here be monsters

摘要

If it's september, then it must be time for Paul Sereno to leave civilisation behind and go looking for dinosaurs. This year, the University of Chicago palaeontologist is contemplating four months in Niger's Tenere desert, a vast arc of wilderness stretching from the Algerian border to the heart of the Sahara. Tenere is so remote that even geographers call it "the desert within a desert". To get there, Sereno's team will have to strike out across open dunes in four-wheel-drive trucks, tracking their progress by global positioning satellites and hauling their water supply behind them. It's hardly well-worn dinosaur territory, but that's the point. Sereno isn't looking for well-worn dinosaurs. He's hoping for oddballs, like the three he dug up last time he went to Niger. And he reckons he'll find them, no trouble.