DINOSAUR fossils were found for the first time in Hong Kong on a remote island in the city’s countryside.
Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conservation Department discovered the fossils on Port Island, an unhabitable extend of rocks in the city’s northeastern waters, in March, according to a government statement released Wednesday.
Experts believe the bone remains came from a “large aged dinosaur” from the Cretaceous period, which occurred more than 145 million to 66 million years after the Jurassic period.
Bernadette Linn, Hong Kong’s Secretary of Development, stated that the discovery is significant and provides fresh proof for paleoecology studies in Hong Kong.
Port Island has been recognized as a site of special scientific interest since 1979, and it is also part of Hong Kong’s UNESCO Global Geopark, which is a collection of islands protected by an international framework and primarily utilized for education and sustainable development.
“Further studies will have to be conducted to confirm the species of the dinosaur,” officials stated, adding that Port Island and the larger country park would be closed for further excavations and research. The dinosaur fossils will also be on public exhibit at Hong Kong’s Heritage Discovery Centre starting Friday.
Paleontologists said the momentous discovery is significant for Hong Kong, which has a complex geological past and ever-changing weather patterns.
“The only way we can find dinosaur fossils is if there is a bit on the surface that we can see,” Michael Pittman, an assistant professor of life sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told CNN, adding that if researchers arrived later, the remains might have completely eroded.
Plants and fish are the only “dinosaur-era things” discovered in Hong Kong thus far, he said.
Pittman further stated that the discovery of body fossils is uncommon geographically, as skeleton remains are not commonly found in southern China, which is famed for its dinosaur eggs.
However, since 2020, experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered dinosaur remains buried shallowly in nine locations around the southwestern province of Yunnan and conducted excavations.
Paleontologists in China discovered Gandititan cavocaudatus remains at a construction site in Jiangxi province earlier this year. The fossils, which are thought to be 90 million years old, belonged to a new dinosaur species that had previously been unknown in East Asia.
It’s uncertain how long Port Island will be closed to visitors.
“If they end up finding a whole skeleton of a big dinosaur or two dinosaurs, they might have to go back next summer, and the summer after that,” according to Pittman.