(Web Desk) - The officials in Hong Kong announced that for the first time, they have found fossils of dinosaurs on a remote and uninhabited island in the city.
In a statement, the government said that the fossils belonged to a large dinosaur from the Cretaceous period and were estimated to be 145 million to 66 million years old.
Scientists will carry out further studies to confirm the species of the dinosaur.
The rock was discovered on Port Island in the UNESCO Global Geopark in the north-eastern waters of the city and the fossils have been put on display at one of the shopping districts of Hong Kong.
In a statement, Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said, “The discovery is of great significance and provides new evidence for research on palaeoecology in Hong Kong.”
According to the experts, the body of the dinosaur was probably buried using gravel and sand and had resurfaced after a large flood. It was again buried at the discovery site, the statement added.
The fossil was discovered after the Antiquities and Monuments Office was alerted by the conservation department in March that some sedimentary rock appears to contain substances which look like vertebrate fossils. Earlier, only a dinosaur-era fish fossil was discovered in Hong Kong.
A palaeontologist with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Michael Pittman said that the fossil's discovery was an exciting moment for the city.
“Hong Kong is famous for being a built-up landscape, but half of it is a country park. In the countryside areas, most of what you see are dinosaur-era rocks, but it’s volcanic rocks – and they are bad places to find fossils because fossils just melt. But Port Island is one of the islands that has dinosaur-age rocks of the right type and right environment," he said.
“I’m hoping that looking at these fossils, we’ll see differences with ones from some of the famous sites in China like Sichuan and Yunnan. It could tell a really interesting story about the biogeography of the animals," Pittman added.
The government added that mainland Chinese experts have been commissioned to conduct field investigations.
The fossils will be placed on display from Friday (Oct 25) at the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The government is further planning to open a temporary workshop for people to observe the preparation of fossil specimens by experts by the end of 2024.