A DORSET explorer has just returned from an expedition to the Gobi desert where he found rare dinosaur remains and evidence of highly endangered snow leopards.

Simon Hampel trekked across the southern part of the Mongolian desert with academics from capital Ulan Bator and European experts and medics.

The 37-year-old bachelor leads expeditions for the Scientific Exploration Society, based near Shaftesbury, founded by intrepid voyagers John Blashford-Snell and Ranulph Fiennes in 1969.

The idea was to allow dinosaur expert Professor Altangerel Perle and other Mongolian experts to conduct their field work and to carry out community aid projects in the impoverished country.

The first dinosaur eggs were found in the Gobi in the 1920s but the area was closed to Westerners in the Soviet era, Simon said.

"It's a huge area, very rich in fossils and the point about the Mongolian layers is you get complete skeletons and very well preserved bones," he said.

The party found a perfectly preserved foot and lower leg bones of the 70 million-year-old Tarbosaurus Bataar, related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The party also found its vestigial metatarsus bone - like the dew claw on a dog - which had only been found five times before

"That's very unusual - Perle was ecstatic," Simon added.

The team also discovered eight ribs of a Sauropod - grass-eating giants which could reach 25 metres in length and weigh up to 30 tonnes.

Searching for evidence of the snow leopard in a mountain range, the 29-strong team came across scrape marks and fresh dung only two hours old.

"It's a very, very endangered species - we were very much in their territory," he said.

"We were very excited."

Scientists will go back with students to identify and maybe get a traceable collar on a leopard. The scientific work couldn't have been done without the funding behind SES, Simon added.

The other aspect of the tour involved furnishing destitute schools with books, pens and paper, carrying out dental work, holding clinics and giving out redundant spectacles. "They are little things but they really do make a difference," Simon said.

SES will be going back to give remote areas access to clean water by pumping water through dried-up wells, he added.

First published: August 11, 2005