Damien Boschetto, a paleontology enthusiast from southern France, stumbled upon a remarkable discovery while walking his dog Muffin in the forests of Montouliers. Boschetto spotted bones protruding from a cliffside and upon investigation, he realized he had unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old titanosaur, according to CBS News.
The excavation, which took two years to complete discreetly to protect the site, revealed a 70% complete, 30-foot long skeleton. Boschetto, along with members of the Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association, painstakingly extracted the bones over several 10-day digs, reported the news outlet.
This rare find will now be on display at the Cruzy Museum, allowing the public to come and "admire a dinosaur," according to Boschetto. Francis Fage, founder of the Cruzy Museum, credits Boschetto's keen eye for spotting the bones and believes this discovery is a testament to Boschetto's passion for paleontology.
He said for the past 28 years, researchers have found fossils of dinosaurs and other species in Cruzy, a small village in southern France. But his discovery in the neighboring town of Montouliers led researchers to a new area where bones existed.
Boschetto and the association, which is made up mostly of volunteers, decided to keep his 2022 discovery a secret for two years to protect the site and "avoid damage during the extraction of the largest parts," he said in an email to CBS news.
Over a period of two years, Boschetto and the researchers set up several 10-day excavations, during which they found dinosaur skeletons that were almost completely intact, which is rare, he said.
"This is what makes it an interesting deposit from a scientific point of view," he said. "From a museography point of view, it will make it possible to present to the general public animals almost complete in anatomical positions, which is something great."
