ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nizar Ibrahim - Paleontologist
Nizar Ibrahim scours Northern Africa for clues to what things were like there in the Cretaceous period. A 2015 TED Fellow, he has spearheaded the recent search for the semi-aquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus.

Why you should listen

Paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, a postdoc at the University of Chicago, wanted to uncover the mystery of the Spinosaurus, a gigantic predatory dinosaur whose only known remains were lost during World War II. After identifying a new skeleton at a dig in North Africa, Ibrahim made the landmark conclusion that the Spinosaurus may have been the largest carnivorous dinosaur to ever live. Its crocodile-like head, dense bones, short legs, and wide, paddle feet suggest it was a water dweller unlike any other. “The entire skeleton has water-loving river monster written all over it,” he says.

Ibrahim is a TED Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

More profile about the speaker
Nizar Ibrahim | Speaker | TED.com
TEDYouth 2014

Nizar Ibrahim: How we unearthed the Spinosaurus

Nizar Ibrahim: Como descobrimos o Espinossauro

Filmed:
1,044,658 views

Um carnívoro de 15 metros de comprimento que caçava suas presas em rios 97 milhões de anos atrás, o Espinossaurfo é um "dragão do passado remoto." O paleontólogo Nizar Ibrahim e sua equipe encontraram novos fósseis, escondidos em penhascos do deserto do Saara marroquino, que estão nos ajudando a aprender mais sobre o primeiro dinossauro nadador, que pode ser também o maior de todos os dinossauros carnívoros.
- Paleontologist
Nizar Ibrahim scours Northern Africa for clues to what things were like there in the Cretaceous period. A 2015 TED Fellow, he has spearheaded the recent search for the semi-aquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

Esses dragões de tempos antigos
são incríveis.
00:12
These dragons from deep time
are incredible creatures.
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00:17
They're bizzarre,
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Eles são bizarros,
00:19
they're beautiful,
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eles são lindos,
00:20
and there's very little
we know about them.
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e sabemos muito pouco sobre eles.
00:23
These thoughts were going
through my head
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Essas ideias passavam pela minha cabeça
00:26
when I looked at the pages of
my first dinosaur book.
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ao ler meu livro de dinossauro.
00:30
I was about five years old at the time,
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Eu tinha cerca de cinco anos na época
00:33
and I decided there and then
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e decidi então que seria paleontólogo.
00:35
that I would become a paleontologist.
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A paleontologia me permitiu combinar
o meu amor por animais
00:37
Paleontology allowed me
to combine my love for animals
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com o desejo de viajar
para cantos remotos.
00:41
with my desire to travel to
far-flung corners of the world.
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00:45
And now, a few years later,
I've led several expeditions
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E então, anos depois
liderei várias expedições
00:48
to the ultimate far-flung corner
on this planet, the Sahara.
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para um dos lugares mais inóspitos
do planeta, o Saara.
00:54
I've worked in the Sahara because
I've been on a quest
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Trabalhei no Saara
porque estava em uma missão
00:58
to uncover new remains of
a bizarre, giant predatory dinosaur
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para descobrir restos de um dinossauro
01:03
called Spinosaurus.
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chamado Espinossauro.
Ossos desse animal foram achados
no deserto egípcio,
01:06
A few bones of this animal
have been found
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01:09
in the deserts of Egypt
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01:11
and were described about 100 years ago
by a German paleontologist.
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e categorizados há 100 anos
por um paleontólogo alemão.
01:16
Unfortunately, all his Spinosaurus bones
were destroyed in World War II.
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Infelizmente, todos esses ossos
foram destruídos na 2ª Guerra Mundial.
01:21
So all we're left with are just
a few drawings and notes.
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Então, ficamos apenas
com alguns desenhos e anotações,
01:25
From these drawings,
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de onde sabemos que ele que viveu
há cerca de 100 milhões de anos,
01:27
we know that this creature, which lived
about 100 million years ago,
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01:30
was very big,
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ele era muito grande
01:32
it had tall spines on its back,
forming a magnificent sail,
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tinha espinha ereta formando
uma magnífica vela
01:35
and it had long, slender jaws,
a bit like a crocodile,
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e tinha maxilar longo e fino
parecido com o do crocodilo,
01:41
with conical teeth,
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com dentes cônicos,
01:43
that may have been used
to catch slippery prey, like fish.
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que provavelmente era usado
para caçar presas lisas como peixes.
01:48
But that was pretty much
all we knew
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Mas isso era tudo o que soubemos
01:50
about this animal for the next 100 years.
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sobre esse aninal pelos próximos 100 anos.
01:58
My fieldwork took me to the border region
between Morocco and Algeria,
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Minha profissão me levou
à fronteira entre o Marrocos e a Algéria,
02:03
a place called the Kem Kem.
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um lugar chamado Kem Kem.
02:05
It's a difficult place to work in.
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É um lugar difícil de se trabalhar.
02:08
You have to deal with sandstorms
and snakes and scorpions,
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Você lida com tempestades de areia
cobras e escorpiões,
02:11
and it's very difficult to find
good fossils there.
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e é muito difícil achar um bom fóssil lá.
02:15
But our hard work paid off.
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Mas o nosso esforço valeu a pena.
02:17
We discovered many incredible specimens.
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Descobrimos muitas espécies incríveis.
02:20
There's the largest dinosaur bone
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Como o mais largo osso de dinossauro
02:21
that had ever been found
in this part of the Sahara.
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já encontrado nessa parte do Saara.
02:25
We found remains of giant
predatory dinosaurs,
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Encontramos restos de dinossauros
predadores gigantes,
02:28
medium-sized predatory dinosaurs,
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predadores de tamanho médio,
02:31
and seven or eight different kinds
of crocodile-like hunters.
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e sete ou oito espécies
semelhantes a crocodilos.
Esses ossos ficaram depositados
em um sistema fluvial.
02:37
These fossils were deposited
in a river system.
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02:40
The river system was also home
to a giant, car-sized coelacanth,
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Lá também foi morada de um celacanto
gigante do tamanho de um carro,
02:44
a monster sawfish,
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um peixe-serra monstro.
02:47
and the skies over the river system
were filled with pterosaurs,
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E os céus sobre esse sistema fluvial
eram povoados por pterossauros,
02:51
flying reptiles.
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répteis voadores.
02:53
It was a pretty dangerous place,
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Era um lugar muito perigoso,
02:55
not the kind of place where you'd want
to travel to if you had a time machine.
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para onde você não gostaria de viajar
se tivesse uma máquina do tempo.
03:00
So we're finding all these
incredible fossils of animals
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Então, encontramos todos
esses incríveis fósseis de animais
03:03
that lived alongside Spinosaurus,
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que viveram ao lado do Espinossauro,
03:05
but Spinosaurus itself proved
to be very elusive.
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mas o Espinossauro
se mostrou muito difícil de achar.
03:08
We were just finding bits and pieces
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Procurávamos pedaços e peças
03:10
and I was hoping that we'd find
a partial skeleton at some point.
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e esperava que encontrássemos
partes de esqueleto em algum momento.
03:15
Finally, very recently,
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Finalmente, muito recentemente,
03:17
we were able to track down a dig site
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fomos capazes de rastrear uma escavação,
03:20
where a local fossil hunter found
several bones of Spinosaurus.
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onde um caçador de fósseis local
encontrou vários ossos de Espinossauro.
03:25
We returned to the site,
we collected more bones.
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Retornamos ao local e coletamos os ossos.
03:28
And so after 100 years we finally
had another partial skeleton
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E então, depois de 100 anos, finalmente
tivemos outro esqueleto parcial
03:32
of this bizarre creature.
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dessa criatura bizarra.
03:34
And we were able to reconstruct it.
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E fomos capazes de reconstruí-lo.
03:36
We now know that
Spinosaurus had a head
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Sabemos agora que ele tinha a cabeça
um pouco parecida com a do crocodilo,
03:38
a little bit like a crocodile,
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bem diferente de outros
dinossauros predadores,
03:39
very different from other
predatory dinosaurs,
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bem diferente do T-Rex
03:42
very different from the T. rex.
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Mas a informação realmente
interessante veio dos restos de esqueleto.
03:44
But the really interesting information
came from the rest of the skeleton.
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Ele tinha longa espinha,
03:49
We had long spines,
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03:51
the spines forming the big sail.
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que formavam uma grande vela.
03:53
We had leg bones, we had skull bones,
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Nós tínhamos os ossos
das patas, ossos do crânio,
03:55
we had paddle-shaped feet, wide feet --
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e patas em formato chato e alongado
03:59
again, very unusual, no other
dinosaur has feet like this --
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novamente, muito peculiar,
nenhum dinossauro tinha patas assim
04:02
and we think they may have been
used to walk on soft sediment,
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e pensamos que elas eram úteis
para andar em solo arenoso
04:05
or maybe for paddling in the water.
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ou talvez para nadar.
04:07
We also looked at the fine
microstructure of the bone,
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Também analisamos
a fina microestrutura dos ossos,
04:11
the inside structure of Spinosaurus bones,
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a estrutura interna,
04:13
and it turns out that they're
very dense and compact.
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e concluímos que eram
muito densos e compactos.
04:16
Again, this is something we see in animals
that spend a lot of time in the water,
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Novamente, essas são características
de animais que andam muito na água,
04:19
it's useful for buoyancy
control in the water.
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muito útil pra controle de flutuabilidade.
04:23
We C.T.-scanned all of our bones
and built a digital Spinosaurus skeleton.
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Nós digitalizamos todos os ossos
e construímos um esqueleto digital dele.
04:28
And when we looked
at the digital skeleton,
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Quando observamos o esqueleto digital
04:30
we realized that yes, this was
a dinosaur unlike any other.
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descobrimos que, sim, era um dinossauro
diferente dos outros.
04:35
It's bigger than a T. rex,
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Maior que um T-Rex,
04:36
and yes, the head has "fish-eating"
written all over it,
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e a cabeça sinalizava
"comedor de peixes" por toda ela
04:39
but really the entire skeleton has
"water-loving" written all over it --
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e realmente o esqueleto inteiro dizia
"amante da água" por toda sua estrutura:
04:43
dense bone, paddle-like feet,
and the hind limbs are reduced in size,
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ossos densos, patas achatadas
e os membros superiores reduzidos,
04:48
and again, this is something
we see in animals
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e novamente, isso é algo
que vemos em animais
04:50
that spend a substantial amount
of time in the water.
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que passam quantidade de tempo
substancial na água.
04:54
So, as we fleshed out our Spinosaurus --
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Então, quando nos aprofundamos
em nosso Espinossauro,
04:58
I'm looking at muscle attachments
and wrapping our dinosaur in skin --
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atentos a ligações musculares
e revestindo-o com pele,
05:02
we realize that we're dealing
with a river monster,
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percebemos que estamos lidando
com um monstro fluvial,
05:06
a predatory dinosaur, bigger than T. rex,
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um dinossauro predador maior que T-Rex,
05:08
the ruler of this ancient river of giants,
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o manda-chuva desse rio
ancestral de gigantes,
05:11
feeding on the many aquatic animals
I showed you earlier on.
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que se alimentava com todos
os animais aquáticos aqui descritos.
05:14
So that's really what makes this
an incredible discovery.
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Então, é isso que faz dele
uma descoberta incrível.
05:17
It's a dinosaur like no other.
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É um dinossauro incrível.
05:18
And some people told me, "Wow,
this is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
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E algumas pessoas me disseram:
"Uau, essa é a descoberta de uma vida
05:22
There are not many things left
to discover in the world."
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e não há muitas descobertas
a serem feitas no mundo."
05:26
Well, I think nothing could be
further from the truth.
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Bem, acho que nada poderia
estar mais longe da verdade.
05:29
I think the Sahara's
still full of treasures,
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Penso que o Saara ainda
está cheio de tesouros
05:32
and when people tell me there are
no places left to explore,
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e quando pessoas dizem que não há
mais lugares a serem explorados,
05:35
I like to quote a famous dinosaur hunter,
Roy Chapman Andrews,
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gosto de citar um famoso pesquisador
de dinossauros, Roy Chapman Andrews
05:39
and he said, "Always, there has been
an adventure just around the corner --
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que disse: "Sempre haverá
uma aventura ao virar a esquina
05:45
and the world is still full of corners."
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e o mundo está cheio delas."
05:47
That was true many decades ago
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Isso era verdadeiro há várias décadas,
quando Roy Chapman Andrews a escreveu
05:49
when Roy Chapman Andrews
wrote these lines.
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05:51
And it is still true today.
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e ainda é atual.
05:53
Thank you.
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Obrigado.
05:54
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)
Translated by Sylvia Del Nero
Reviewed by Maricene Crus

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nizar Ibrahim - Paleontologist
Nizar Ibrahim scours Northern Africa for clues to what things were like there in the Cretaceous period. A 2015 TED Fellow, he has spearheaded the recent search for the semi-aquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus.

Why you should listen

Paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, a postdoc at the University of Chicago, wanted to uncover the mystery of the Spinosaurus, a gigantic predatory dinosaur whose only known remains were lost during World War II. After identifying a new skeleton at a dig in North Africa, Ibrahim made the landmark conclusion that the Spinosaurus may have been the largest carnivorous dinosaur to ever live. Its crocodile-like head, dense bones, short legs, and wide, paddle feet suggest it was a water dweller unlike any other. “The entire skeleton has water-loving river monster written all over it,” he says.

Ibrahim is a TED Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

More profile about the speaker
Nizar Ibrahim | Speaker | TED.com

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