While walking his dog, he discovers a 70 million year old titanosaur and decides to change his life

He was walking his dog when he found something very special: a titanosaur fossil approximately 70 million years old. Its length is 9 meters. It happened to Damien Bocheteau, 25, in Montolier in Hérault, France: “While I was walking the dog, a landslide on the edge of a cliff exposed the bones,” he said, adding: “They were bones mixed together, so they seemed isolated, and we realized after a few days of excavation “They were connected bones of a single skeleton.”

To make it even more special, it all happened in 2022: the man immediately contacted the local archaeologists' association and agreed with them to keep the secret for two years to prevent vandals from damaging the find.

While paleontologists regularly unearth bones of animals that existed millions of years ago, it is extremely rare to find a completely intact fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur: for example, one study estimates that between 66 and 68 million years ago, there were 1.7 billion dinosaurs in Tyrannosaurus rex, but scientists have recovered fossil remains of fewer than 100 specimens. According to Newsweek, researchers say the sample discovered by Bochetto is 70 percent complete.

When researchers finish studying the bones, the discovered titanosaur will be displayed at the Croze Museum, which also includes the femur of another titanosaur found in 2012. “These discoveries are interesting from a scientific point,” Francis Vagis, the museum's director, told The Washington Post. “Because it contributes to the understanding of species and ecosystems in the Late Cretaceous of France and Europe.”

The discovery also changed Bochetto's life: the 25-year-old, already passionate about these issues, decided to leave his job in the energy sector and in September enrolled in a master's degree in paleontology.

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