180 million-year-old dinosaur fossil found

AN international team of palaeontologists has found a dinosaur fossil dating back more than 180 million years and believed to be one of the oldest discovered, the Moroccan government said.

The 30ft-long dinosaur, resembling a rhinoceros with a long neck and tail, was discovered in the High Atlas mountain village of Tazouda, said Morocco’s minister for Energy and Mines Mohammed Boutaleb.

He said the fossil was the “oldest one known in the world”.

The dinosaur has been dubbed “Tazoudasaurus naimi” for the village in which the fossil was found, about 370 miles southeast of Rabat.

Only its head, jaw and some vertebrae are exposed out of the ground, according to the officials.

“It’s an exceptional discovery,” said team member Philippe Tacquet, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris.

“We’re writing a new page of history about the great giants of the Mesozoic period,” he added.

Experts from Morocco, Switzerland and the United States also took part in the excavation.

Dating studies and other analyses have been conducted on the fossil since Moroccan authorities investigating the illegal traffic of bones stumbled across the find in 1998.

The oldest known dinosaur fossil, “Atlasaurus imelakei”, is believed to be 160 million years old and was also found in Morocco, Tacquet says.