-The Sahara Desert is home to some of the world's
most isolated dinosaur bones.
One recent huge find has sparked dreams
of a world-class exhibition in Niger.
Niger has long boasted fossil riches.
Desert covers two-thirds of the country.
There are countless bones poking through the ground.
But most of the dinosaurs found here
go to museums in Europe or North America
for reasons practical and frustrating.
Wealthier nations offer temperature-controlled rooms
that prevent skeletons from crumbling.
Niger lacks that storage.
Its top museum is infested with termites.
Leaders are striving to update that infrastructure
and build a lasting home for Niger's ancient treasures.
Local scientists teamed up with Paul Sereno,
a University of Chicago paleontologist
whose decades of expeditions in Niger
have added nine more species to the world's dinosaur record.
With Niger's permission, Sereno has collected
hundreds of fossils from the country over the years.
They're stored at his lab in Chicago.
He plans to catalogue the bones and return them to Niger.
-I've come to Niger because it's got
the greatest slice of the Sahara,
the greatest expanse, the greatest desert,
the greatest hunting ground for dinosaurs
and, in fact, ancient humans.
It's like being on another planet.
-Sereno's film crew shot this footage as his team
catalogued hundreds of bones in Niger
over a series of trips in 2018 and 2019.
Digging up a dinosaur in Niger involves a lot of time,
communication, and patience.
Here, Sereno and his team find the backbone edges
of a new long-necked dinosaur.
They're peeking out from the rocky surface
that entombed them some 170 million years ago.
-As a paleontologist, I dug up dinosaurs,
and you get these weird creatures.
There's a sort of detachment.
The weirder, the better.
The more fearsome, the better.
And then I came across a human graveyard,
and I realized this is my species.
This is my story.
-Here, Sereno and his team excavate a teenager
from the Green Sahara site called Gobero in Niger.
People who existed here 5,000 to 10,000 years ago,
before the Pyramids were built, lived alongside a lake
filled with crocodiles, hippos, and elephants.
Niger's government is working with Sereno's team
to build two new museums that would house
the American explorer's discoveries,
as well as what the next generation
of adventurers uncovers in the nation's soil.
Officials say the exhibits
could anchor the country's first paleontology program.
Tourists and scholars will flock in, they hope.
The project would be called Niger Heritage,
and it's estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars.
Preserving dinosaurs is a hefty burden
for one of the poorest countries on Earth.
Plans for Niger Heritage came to a halt
when the pandemic struck.
Niger hit record highs of coronavirus deaths
and cases in recent months.
And so 20 tons of bones
sit isolated in the middle of the Sahara,
where they're vulnerable to looters.
The nation is also confronting an escalation
of Islamist insurgencies.
Attacks by extremist groups have surged.
Islamic State fighters staged the bloodiest ambush in years
in early January,
killing at least 100 people in two southwestern villages.
And researchers say the number of Nigeriens
who died in the violence more than doubled from 2019 to 2020.
Paleontologists here roam the desert
in a caravan of Land Rovers
with automatic weapons for protection.
-Yeah, we carry a guard, because this is the Wild West,
so you got to be prepared for anything and everything,
because there's nobody that's gonna be out here
policing the place.
And so you don't know who you're gonna run into out here.
-Scientists say it's worth the risk.
Digging up these specimens took months.
Sereno thinks he's found 11 new species.
His team crafted temporary lids for each find out of plaster
and then brushed sand over the top.
It's not unusual for a paleontologist
to bury dig sites before returning with movers,
but the pandemic has delayed that process
for at least a year.
Niger has sent soldiers to guard the expanse,
and nomads are also keeping an eye on the dinosaurs,
periodically texting Sereno with updates.
Dinosaur bones are a precious and finite resource,
and thus far, mostly outsiders
have benefited from the bones found in Niger.
The government is betting that dinosaurs
can help grow Niger's economy,
and they hope a new paleontology program will come from it too.
The country needs job-creating engines,
and this is one.