Becca Monaghan
Mar 12, 2024
ZMG - Amaze Lab / VideoElephant
A 25-year-old Frenchman has been sitting on a major secret for the last two years.
While walking his dog in the summer of 2022, Damien Boschetto casually stumbled across a 70 million-year-old titanosaur skeleton. He initially discovered a dinosaur bone, which soon led to an almost fully intact body at 30 feet long and 70 per cent complete.
"It happened one morning like any other, during an ordinary walk," the Paleontology enthusiast told France Bleu. "While walking the dog, a landslide on the edge of the cliff exposed the bones of various skeletons."
"They were fallen bones, therefore isolated. We realised after a few days of excavations that they were connected bones," Boschetto continued.
He chose to keep his discovery a secret to allow palaeontologists time to excavate the dinosaur remains before fellow enthusiasts flooded in.
The bones were taken to a lab at the Cruzy Museum where they are currently on display.
"For the museum and the association of which I am a part, these new discoveries are important for science, the future of the museum and the collections," he said. "They will enable us to contribute to the expansion of the museum."
Museum founder Francis Fage said the discovery was incredibly rare.
"It is very rare to find this, he had to have the eye," he said. "There are some who have passed for 30 years and they have not seen this site."
Since his findings, Boschetto has left his job in the energy sector and is now pursuing a Masters in palaeontology. He hopes to continue his work with the Cruzy Museum in the future.
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