Rabat, Sept 23: An international team of paleontologists has found a dinosaur fossil dating back more than 180 million years and believed to be one of the oldest ever discovered, the government said. The 30-foot long dinosaur, resembling a rhinoceros with a long neck and tail, was discovered in the high Atlas Mountain village of Tazouda, Morocco`s minister for energy and mines said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters in the capital, Mohammed Boutaleb, the minister, 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 620 kilometres southeast of Rabat. Only its head, jaw and some vertebrae are exposed out of the ground, the officials said.


"It`s an exceptional discovery," said team member Philippe Tacquet, a paleontologist at the natural history museum in Paris.

"We`re writing a new page of history about the great giants of the Mesozoic" period, he said.

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

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 said.
Bureau Report