The Four Winds Uncover Fossils in India Quiz

Answer: King

The name Rajasaurus translates to 'King of Lizards' with Raja being the Sanskrit word for king. Further research into the various bones found and thought to be part of the Rajasaurus have led to the understanding that this animal evolved after the Indian subcontinent had separated from the ancient landmass called Gondwana.

As a result, the remains of the Rajasaurus have only been found on the Indian peninsula. In 2003, scientists agreed that the Rajasaurus could be classified as a separate genus altogether, belonging to the Abelisauridae family.

Answer: Indian paleontologist Sohan Lal Jain.

The Jainosaurus is classified as a titanosaur, a group of sauropod dinosaurs, where sauropod means lizard-footed. The earliest records of fossil finds of this dinosaur date back to the discoveries made by Charles Alfred Matley between 1917 and 1920 near Jabalpur in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Although the dinosaur was a herbivorous quadruped, it was not named after the Jain religion which shuns meat and any form of harm to animals. Instead it was named after the Indian paleontologist Sohan Lal Jain, who studied the braincases of sauropods extensively.

Answer: Madagascar

Though widely separated by many miles of ocean today, India and Madagascar were both once joined together as part of the larger landmass of Gondwana. The two separated only later during the Mesozoic period and thus many of the dinosaur fossils found in India are also found on the island of Madagascar.

The other three options belong to completely different plates.

Answer: Ancient Greek word for the Egyptian crocodile god

Soukhos is the Ancient Greek word for the Egyptian crocodile god, Sobek. Indo is taken from the Ancient Greek name for the River Indus, which also lent its name to the country of India. The fossil was named by the German paleontologist, Friedrich von Huene in 1932.

He believed dinosaurs were more closely related to crocodiles than lizards and hence suffixed the name with 'suchus' for crocodile instead of 'saurus' for lizard.

Answer: The area was once covered by water.

Trilobites have long been considered by paleontologists to be among the most diverse animals to have lived on the earth. They are believed to have lived as early as 550 million years ago until a large part of the species was wiped out around 250 million years ago. Given that trilobites are extinct marine arthropods, it is safe to assume that their presence indicates the area was under water at that point in time.

This confirms various scientific theories that the Himalayas were at one point in time under water before the process of orogeny pushed them upwards to form one of the highest mountain ranges in the world.

Answer: Snake

The Sanajeh belongs to an extinct family of Gondwanan snakes called Madtsoiidae that lived during the late Cretaceous period in the western part of India. The genus of Madtsoiidae also included some Australian snakes like Wonambi and Yurlunggur. Fossilized remains discovered in Madhya Pradesh have shown the snake coiled around dinosaur eggs indicating that it preyed on them.

Answer: Fossilized tree trunk

The National Fossil Wood Park at Sathanur is home to a fossilized tree trunk. Discovered in 1940 by Dr. M. S. Krishnan, a geologist with the Geological Survey of India, the tree trunk is believed to be over 120 million years old. Other discoveries have found similar petrified tree trunks in various locations, all within a 10 km radius of Sathanur.

A study of these tree trunks has confirmed that the area was covered by water during the Cretaceous period.

Answer: Eucalyptus

The Ghughua Fossil Park is found within the state of Madhya Pradesh and is famous for its collection of plant fossils. Some of these fossils, most notably the palm fossils, are believed to date back to almost 65 million years. One of the most significant fossils found in the park is that of the eucalyptus plant.

It is the oldest known fossil of its type. It provides further scientific support for the fact that India was once part of the ancient continent of Gondwana.

Answer: Sedimentary rocks

The Lameta Formation consists of sedimentary rocks. Given their process of formation by the laying down of one strata upon another over a period of thousands of years, fossil finds are typically concentrated in sedimentary rocks. The Lameta Formation is found across the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in India.

The formation has been dated to the Upper Cretaceous age and is notable for the dinosaur fossils discovered within it.

Answer: Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore

The B. tagorei was named after Rabindranath Tagore, one of India's foremost poets and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded in 1913 for his work "Gitanjali". The dinosaur was so named as the fieldwork on this fossil was begun in the year that marked the poet's birth centenary.

Barapasaurus translates to 'big-footed lizard' with 'bara' being the word for big and 'pa' for leg in various Indian languages. All known fossils of this dinosaur have been found near a village called Pochampalli in south India. The Barapasaurus is one of the earliest known sauropods to have been discovered and the plentiful fossils found have made it one of the most completely known sauropods of the early Jurassic period.