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 Griffin Bones?
"We stopped at a low saddle between the hills. Before I could remove the keys from the ignition, Mark sang out excitedly...Several feet away, near the very apex of the saddle, was a stunning skull and partial skeleton of a Proto[ceratops], a big fellow whose beak and crooked fingers pointed west to our small outcrop, like a griffin pointing the way to a guarded treasure.... We continued to pounce on precious specimens with remarkable consistency...Mark would sing out, 'Skull!' and, almost on cue I would find one too. The surface of the gentle slopes and shallow gullies was splattered with white patches [of fossils], as if someone had emptied a paint can in a random fashion over the ground."
—American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Michael Novacek describing the discovery of Protoceratops fossils on a 1993 expedition to the Gobi Desert with fellow paleontologist Mark Norell
Guarding Gobi Gold
More than two thousand years ago, hardy gold miners sought their fortunes in the vast Gobi Desert of central Asia. These miners were Scythians—members of a horse-riding people who controlled much of central Asia and the northern Middle East between about 800 BC to AD 200. Relying on travelers' tales, Greek authors reported that in the scorching heat of the Gobi, the miners battled not only the blazing sun, but also the mighty griffin: a fierce half-eagle, half-lion hybrid that guarded fantastic treasures of gold.
Evidence Everywhere
In many parts of the world, dinosaur fossils are incredibly rare and hard to find—but not in certain parts of the Gobi Desert. For thousands of years, Protoceratops fossils, like the one on display and pictured here, could regularly be seen eroding out of hillsides. In recent years many have been collected, making them somewhat less common.
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