Sarno, 42 years old, is an extraordinary dinosaur "hunter". Unlike other researchers, who searched for dinosaur skeletons in the Northern Hemisphere, he concentrates on the Southern Hemisphere, whose "dinosaur history has not yet been written"
When we were camping in an oasis in the middle of the Sahara, Paul Sarno told his crew the bad news. Their journey is over. The money is over. After many years of planning, a 2,400 km journey in the desert and a month of bureaucratic wrangling with officials in the Niger government, the world famous dinosaur "hunter" was close to breaking even.
Three years earlier, in one of the scariest areas of the desert, he discovered a dinosaur spine but didn't have time to dig. Now, with his team gathered around him, he faced defeat. Then, within 48 hours, the picture changed in his favor.
Approval from the Niger government suddenly came, and so did the money. Even though the time allotted for the expedition was running out and about half of his crew members - including some of the more experienced scientists - had left, Serano decided to continue. Recently, six years after he returned from the trip, he announced that the skeleton found on that trip was that of a 135 million year old herbivorous dinosaur.
Sarno, 42 years old, is an extraordinary dinosaur "hunter". Unlike other researchers, who looked for dinosaur skeletons in the Northern Hemisphere, he concentrates on the Southern Hemisphere, whose "dinosaur history has not yet been written", according to him. He headed six research expeditions to the deserts of Niger, Morocco and Argentina, and discovered six new species of dinosaurs in these expeditions.
In 1988 he discovered the skull and other bone parts of the dinosaur known as "Herresaurus" (named after Victorino Herrera, an Argentinian farmer who discovered bones of this type of dinosaur back in 1958); In 1991 he uncovered the bones of one of the earliest dinosaurs, 228 million years old; In 1993 in Niger, as mentioned, he discovered a 135 million year old skeleton, 8 meters long, whose structure was almost undamaged; In the same year Benijer discovered another skeleton, three times longer; In 1995 he discovered two 90 million year old dinosaur skeletons in Morocco; His latest discovery is from 97, a 110 million year old oversized dinosaur.
A typical working day for Sarno's staff lasts 12 hours, in temperatures reaching up to 52 degrees Celsius. Even at lower temperatures, their working conditions are difficult. Their tools are chisels and hoes. In 1997, a roller was used to load bones weighing 25 tons onto a truck.
Serano drew public attention to a neglected field of research, and did so almost unaided. His great success was contributed in no small part by his looks, and his talent for public relations: in recent years, the paleontologist with the boyish looks, who many say "looks a bit like Indiana Jones", was included in the "50 most beautiful people" list of "People" magazine. "Newsweek" chose him as one of the people who will go far in the new millennium, and more than ten documentaries were made about him.
It has a well-designed website and flashy PR flyers. Last fall, he ran the Chicago Marathon to raise money for his work, raising $14. This public relations tendency drew criticism, but his fellow paleontologists dismiss it. "If it was someone who had no cover for his publications, the criticism would be justified," says David Weisshampel, a paleontologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
"But no one doubts Sarno's scientific contribution, and we must not forget that his publication helps other dinosaur researchers get funding for their work."
Paul Cerno's site at the University of Chicago
By Keith Grossman. Published in "Haaretz" January 20.1.2000, XNUMX
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