09 June 2002

Kahnouj, Kerman -- Iranian archaeologists searching for ancient monuments and artifacts here in this central Iranian province discovered the remainders of a dinosaur on the outskirts of Kahnouj region, the Cultural Heritage Organization (CHO) of Kerman told IRNA Saturday.

According to the said report, a short while ago, complete remainders of the fossil of a dinosaur including its long tail, and even its paws, were traced at the margins of a flood path which forms a part of a branch of Halil Roud (river), near Eslamabad village of Kahnouj, engraved on a huge rock, by CHO archaeologists.

CHO expert, Farzad Forouzanfar, told IRNA that this is the first stance of discovering the complete remainders of a "Cenozoic Era" carnivorous mammal in this region of the Middle East.

Such species faced extinction due to extreme climatic changes at the beginning of the "Quaternary Era", that was the beginning of life of man on earth, as well as the beginning of a long period of great freezing, when many of them were turned into fossils due to being placed in between layers of residues.

Forouzanfar added: "we still cannot exactly tell about the scientific name of this creature, or to which part of the said long era it belonged, but the Iranian archaeologists are busy trying to answer those, and other similar questions."

Source: IRNA