Dinosaurs survived extinction for another 500,000 years in a remote 'Lost World', scientists claim.

New evidence suggests an "isolated community" escaped annihilation and lived on a rocky, desert plateau in North America. Until now, palaeontologists widely believed the creatures were wiped out 65 million years ago when an asteroid collided with Earth. But now experts say a "pocket" of dinosaurs survived and roamed a remote area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado.

Carbon dating of newly-discovered bones in the San Juan Basin proves that these lived for another half-a-million years. The discovery, published this week in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, has been hailed as one of the most important breakthroughs in palaeontology this century. It also brings Hollywood's 'Lost World' – Steven Spielberg's sequel to Jurassic Park – and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name, a step closer to reality.

The bones were discovered buried at Ojo Alamo, a soft sandstone valley deep in the remote San Juan Basin. A team of experts unearthed the bones, which included 34 from a single hadrosaur, and used carbon dating techniques to age them. According to the results, they were 500,000 years younger than any other dinosaur bones previously found.

Jim Fassett, author of the research of the US Geological Survey, said many would still doubt the discovery. He said: "The great difficulty with this hypothesis – that these are the remains of dinosaurs that survived – is ruling out the possibility that the bones date from before the extinction.

May, 1961, New York State - A businessman flying his private plane over the Hudson River Valley claimed that he was "buzzed" by a large flying creature that he said "looked more like a pterodactyl out of the prehistoric ages."

Early 1960s, California - A couple driving through Trinity National Forest reported seeing the silhouette of a giant "bird" that they estimated to have a wingspan of 14 feet. They later described it as resembling a pterodactyl.

January, 1976, Harlingen, Texas - Jackie Davis (14) and Tracey Lawson (11) reported seeing a "bird" on the ground that stood five feet tall, was dark in color with a bald head and a face like a gorilla's with a sharp, six-inch-long beak. A subsequent investigation by their parents uncovered tracks that had three toes and were eight inches across.

February, 1976, San Antonio, Texas - Three elementary school teachers saw what they described as a pterodactyl swooping low over their cars as they drove. They said its wingspan was between 15 and 20 feet. One of the teachers commented that it glided through the air on huge, bony wings - like a bat's.

September, 1982, Los Fresnos, Texas - An ambulance driver named James Thompson was stopped while driving on Highway 100 by his sighting of a "large birdlike object" flying low over the area. He described it as black or grayish with a rough texture, but no feathers. It had a five- to six-foot wingspan, a hump on the back of its head, and almost no neck at all. After consulting some books to identify the creature, he decided it most looked like a pterosaur.

In 1925, a native man was allegedly attacked by a creature that he identified as a pterosaur. This occurred near a swamp in Rhodesia (now Zambia) where the man suffered a large wound in his chest that he said was caused by the monster's long beak.

In the late 1980s, noted cryptozoologist Roy Mackal led an expedition into Namibia from which he had heard reports of a prehistoric-looking creature with a wingspan of up to 30 feet.

If pterosaurs really died out with the dinosaurs and their fossil remains were not first discovered until 1784 (in Germany), then a depiction of one could not possibly exist in an ancient rock carving. Yet a pictograph found high on a cliff face near Thompson, Utah seems to show just that.

While many experts believe the drawing is of a bird, the beak, head prominence, wings and legs also look very much like those of a pterosaur.
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Another fascinating tale of a pterosaur literally coming out of stone dates back to 1856 in France. Workmen were digging through Jurassic-era limestone for a railway tunnel between the St.-Dizier and Nancy lines. When a large bolder of limestone was split open, the workers were astonished to see a large winged creature come stumbling out. They said it fluttered its wings, let out a croaking noise and then dropped dead at their feet. The creature had thick black, leathery skin, a beak full of sharp teeth, long talons for feet, and membrane-like wings that spanned 10 feet, 7 inches, by their measure.

The body of the creature was taken to the nearby town of Gray, according to the story, where it was identified as a pterodactyl by a student of paleontology. As reported in the Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856, the rock in which the creature had apparently been entombed for millions of years, contained a precise mold of its body.