Here’s a guy who has no problem burying secrets, because Frenchman Damien Boschetto‘s been sitting on an enormous one — dinosaur-sized, literally — for nearly 2 years now.
The 25-year-old says he stumbled upon dinosaur bones back in May 2022 while he was walking his dog in the forest near his hometown Cruzy in southern France. The thing is, Damien didn’t just find one or 2 giant bones … he unearthed a nearly intact, 70-million-year-old skeleton of a titanosaur!
Damien told France Bleuthe discovery was totally dumb luck. He said, “While walking the dog, a landslide on the edge of the cliff exposed the bones of various skeletons.”
As for why he kept relatively silent about his amazing treasure — he said he wanted to give paleontologists time to excavate the entire skeleton before the site was overrun with pillagers and dinosaur enthusiasts. The fossil is now on display at the Cruzy Museum.
Titanosaurs, btw, were plant-eating dinosaurs known for their very long necks, and they lived during the Cretaceous period, which lasted from 145 million to 66 million years ago. Scientists say the largest titanosaurs were about 85 feet long and weighed 70 tons.
In other words … it’s giving Fred Flintsone’s Bronto Crane at the quarry. Y’know — the one he slid down to end each day.
Speaking of jobs, Damian quit his in the energy sector after his dino-find and is now pursuing a master’s degree in paleontology. We’d say he’s got his thesis paper in the bag!
