A French man found a dinosaur fossil while walking his dog

world News

by Alyssa Guzman

A French man was out for a daily walk with his dog, Muffin, when they found a 70-million-year-old dinosaur fossil that had taken two years to unearth.

Damien Bochetto and Mavin were walking in the forests of Montolier in southern France near his home when the paleontology enthusiast discovered bones protruding from the cliff in 2022. According to CBS News.

The bones belong to an almost complete skeleton of a long-necked titanosaur. He told ABC News.

“It happened one morning, like any other morning, during a normal walk,” he told the outlet. “The area around Croze is rich in fossils of dinosaurs and other species that lived at the same time.”

He said it was “rare” to discover skeletons in France and Europe, and it took two years to discover them.

ABC News reported that excavations found the skeleton to be about 70% complete and about 30 feet long.

“They were fallen bones, and therefore isolated. We realized after a few days of excavation that they were connected bones.”

While carrying out the two-year project, Bochetto and members of the Cultural Society of Archaeology and Paleontology kept their discovery secret to protect the site from intruders and those who want to plunder the site.

They extracted bones over several 10-day periods, according to CBS News.

The skeleton will now be visible at the Croze Museum, and Bochetto hopes the public will come “to admire the dinosaur.”

Francis Fagg, founder of the Croze Museum, told a local outlet that Bochetto was lucky to have discovered the bones initially, and that he had an “eye” for dinosaur research, according to ABC News.

“It's very rare to find this, he had to have the eye,” Fagg said. “There are people who have not seen this site for 30 years.”

Since the fateful discovery, Bochetto has resigned from his job in the energy sector and now hopes to obtain a master's degree in paleontology to continue his work at the museum, ABC News reported.

Titanosaurs roamed the Earth 145 million to 163 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. It is the largest known land animal, and some have grown to the size of modern whales. According to Britannica.

Titanosaur fossils have been found on all continents, except Antarctica.