ONE of the rarest dinosaur finds in the world has been unearthed in Mongolia's Gobi Desert by a team organised by a Stroud adventurer.

Ex-Stroud High School girl Lorna McGregor led a group of experts as they uncovered perfectly preserved bones from a flesh-eating Tarbosaurus Bataar - an Asian relative of the fearsome Tyrannosaur.

Fossil robbers appeared to have removed much of the 70 million year-old beast, but one of the foot bones the team unearthed, similar to a dog's dewclaw, is one of only six ever found.

McGregor, a former Army officer, arranged the trip for the Dorset-based Scientific Exploration Society (SES).

She told the SNJ: "We knew there was an opportunity to find dinosaur relics but the area is absolutely vast, so to come across something was fantastic."

She added that world renowned palaeontologist Professor Altangel Perle from the Mongolian National University in Ulaanbataar, who joined the team, was overjoyed at the find.

"He has just so excited," said Lorna. "The fifth metatarsus vestigial has only been found five times before. It looks like the robbers left the most important find behind."

The SES team also discovered eight ribs of a Sauropod, a grass eating monster which reached as much as 25 metres in length and weighed around 30-35 tonnes.

Higher in the Ikh Bogd mountain range, they found evidence of the endangered snow leopards and identified 145 plants to add to scientific records.

And they completed the trip with community aid work in the town of Dalzangad, distributing school equipment, as well as offering local nomads medical advice and spectacles donated in the UK.

"It was a fantastic trip," added Lorna. "I love travelling and Mongolia is a place I have always wanted to visit."

For more information about expeditions organised by the Scientific Exploration Society, including a return to Mongolia, see www.ses-explore.org or call 01747 854898.