Gobi Desert

• The Gobi covers much of southern Mongolia and parts of northern China. During the Age of Dinosaurs, it was a land of scrub and scattered trees.

• The first fossil-hunting expeditions to the Gobi Desert took place in 1922-25, organized by the American Museum of Natural History.

• The 1922-25 Gobi expeditions set out to look for fossils of very early humans, but instead found some amazing dinosaur remains.

• The first fossil dinosaur eggs were found by the 1922-25 expeditions.

• Velociraptor, Avimimus, and Pinacosaurus were discovered in the Gobi.

• Russian fossil-hunting trips into the Gobi Desert in 1946 and 1948-49 discovered new types of armored dinosaurs, duckbilled dinosaurs, and the huge meat-eater Tarbosaurus.

• More expeditions to the Gobi in the 1960s-70s, especially to the fossil-rich area of the Nemegt Basin, found the giant sauropod Opisthocoelicaudia and the helmet headed Prenocephale.

• Other dinosaurs found in the Gobi include the ostrich-dinosaur Gallimimus and the strong-beaked "egg thief" Oviraptor.

• The Gobi can be -40Fahrenheit (-40Celsius) in winter and 104Fahrenheit (40Celsius) in summer.

• Despite the harsh conditions, the Gobi Desert is one of the most exciting areas in the world for finding dinosaur fossils.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs