A SPONTANEOUS BARRAGE OF EXPLETIVES rang through the air, bringing my coworkers scrambling over the hill. Madagascar’s sweltering midday heat no longer mattered. There before me, beneath a clod of freshly dislodged sediment, were four shining teeth, exposed to the light of day for the first time in more than 65 million years. Most kids could have confirmed that these sharp, recurved, chocolate brown objects, each topped with fine serrations, once lined the mouth of a meat-eating dinosaur, a theropod. Best of all, these teeth were still attached to a jawbone. Further digging revealed a complete and undistorted jaw, with every tooth in place. Over the next couple of days we found more bones of the same, exceptionally preserved skull—part of the eye socket, another jaw with teeth, a gnarly bone from the nose region. Soon it became clear that most of the skull was buried here, although the individual bones had fallen apart and now lay strewn over several square meters. We could barely contain our excitement. Field paleontology relies as much on serendipity as on know-how and hard work, and the fates had smiled down upon us. Yet, as more and more bones of the ancient predator were unearthed, we began to get nervous. A key portion of the skull remained missing, leaving a mystery unsolved. <...>
