A man was found in front of a fossil dinosaur 70 million years old while he was walking his dog, but he and local archaeologists kept it a secret for two years because of fears that vandals would approach the find.
Damien Boschetto, 25, made the discovery in Montouliers in Hérault, France, about two years ago, Newsweek reports.
The group of archaeologists determined that the fossil was a nearly complete 30-foot-long fossilized titanosaur.
While paleontologists regularly find bones from animals that lived millions of years ago, it is incredibly rare to find a completely intact fossilized dinosaur skeleton. For example, one study shows that there were 1.7 billion titanosaurs, which are believed to have lived 66 to 68 million years ago, but scientists have recovered fossilized remains of fewer than 100 of them.
Titanosaurs were a subgroup of sauropods, herbivores with very long necks, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The huge herbivores are some of the largest known dinosaurs and lived from about 150 to 66 million years ago on every continent.
Researchers found that the titanosaur fossil discovered by Boschetto was about 70 percent complete, Newsweek reported.
“While walking the dog, a landslide at the edge of the cliff revealed the bones of various skeletons,” Boschetto said, adding: “They were fallen bones. We realized after a few days of excavation that they were connected bones.”
Boschetto and researchers kept the discovery under wraps for two years to protect the site from vandals, Newsweek reported.
Source: News Beast
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