A tidy home makes a tidy mind makes a tidy discovery for scientists.
According to The Associated Press, a dinosaur fossil has been sitting in a drawer for decades after it was first discovered in Antarctica.
Geologist Mike Thomson had uncovered the sample during an Antarctic expedition in 1985, and it remained in the British Antarctic Survey’s collections past his death in 2020. That is, until it was finally spotted by paleontologist Mark Evans over 40 years later.
Evans confirmed that the sample was indeed a fossil of bone that comes from the tail of a dinosaur.
“If [Thomson] were still with us, he would be delighted to know what this was,” Evans says.
The fossil belongs to a type of dinosaur called a titanosaur, though its exact species has yet to be identified. In the meantime, they can call it a titano-drawer.