Man reveals why he kept 70-million-year-old dinosaur bones he found two years ago a secret

Our planet harbors countless hidden mysteries, offering glimpses into a world millions of years before humanity. Researchers are still unearthing many dinosaur fossils across the world that would leave us amazed that these giants walked on Earth once. One such fossil was discovered by chance when a French man walked his dog two years ago. Damien Boschetto bumped into a 70-million-year-old fossil in 2022 when he and his dog were walking through the woods of Montouliers, close to his home in Cruzy, a village in southern France, per ABC News. However, he chose to keep it a secret.

"It happened one morning like any other, during an ordinary walk. While walking the dog, a landslide on the edge of the cliff exposed the bones of various skeletons," shared Boschetto with FranceBleu, the first to report this two-year-old discovery. Turns out, Boschetto who is now 25 years old found the skeletal remains of a long-necked Titanosaur. Having a passion for paleontology himself, Boschetto knew that his village Cruzy was rich in fossils of dinosaurs and other creatures that roamed the Earth millions of years ago. "For 28 years, Cruzy has been supplying and building one of the largest collections of dinosaur fossils from the Upper Cretaceous period in France," he told the news channel. However, this discovery was remarkable because it was an almost complete vertebrae of the species.

Boschetto told the channel, "They were fallen bones, therefore isolated. We realized after a few days of excavations that they were connected bones." The bones exposed themselves after a landslide at the edge of the cliff. The dinosaur enthusiast teamed up with members of the Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association (ACAP) at the Cruzy Museum to unravel the mystery behind the titanosaur bones. However, Boschetta and the paleontology team kept this discovery a secret mainly to protect the paleontological site while they were trying to find more fossils at the excavation site. They even named the Titanosaur "Caramel" to whom the giant skeletons belonged.

As per Boschetta's statement, the excavation site was full of sandstone which was a very hard sediment and it needed careful extraction of the fossils. The team was concerned about people pillaging or damaging the excavation site and decided that it was best to keep it a secret. But recently, the Titanosaur fossil had been excavated and sheltered in the Cruzy Museum for people to visit while the experts examine it. "It is a flagship piece for the general public, to be able to admire a dinosaur in anatomical connection like that," Boschetta told the French media. Speaking of Boschetta's incredible finding despite being self-taught in paleontology, Francis Fage, founder of the Cruzy Museum told the channel, "It is very rare to find this, he had to have the eye. Some have passed for 30 years and they have not seen this site."

After two years of this fossil discovery, Jean-Marc Veyssières, a part of the Titanosaur fossil excavation, shared its features on a Facebook post. Boschetto's chance encounter with the giant fossil uncovered remains of other species too. Apart from the skull, neck, back, pelvis and tail vertebrae of the 10-meter-long titanosaur, they also discovered, the "well-preserved skeleton of another slightly disjointed Titanosaur, two rhabdodon (herbivorous dinosaurs) and plenty of carnivorous dinosaur tooth." These fossils were proof that these "corpses were trampled." Having contributed to this incredible discovery, Boschetto decided to leave his job in the energy sector and aims to pursue a Master's degree in Paleontology to utilize his potential for more work in Cruzy.