By IANS,
London : Poland is to open a secretly built museum to exhibit the remains of a newly discovered carnivorous dinosaur, nicknamed the “dragon”, the Daily Telegraph has reported.
The 200-million-year-old reptile, an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, was unearthed two years ago from a village in southern Poland, according to the London-based daily.
The dinosaur is about five yards long and believed to have been bipedal and had teeth that measured two inches.
The 1920s brickyard in Lipie Slaskie village, from where the predator dinosaur’s remains were found, had been a place of attraction for palaeontologists from around the globe until the official announcement of the findings Saturday.
Apart from the dinosaur, the palaeontologists also found a host of ancient creatures at the same site.
“This place is unique,” said Grzegorz Niedwiedzki, a palaeontologist working at the site. “Not only have we found our dinosaur here, but also a mammal-type reptile, dicynodon, and some remains of other flying dinosaurs as well as plants. And it’s all just 16 ft 5 in deep.”
To prevent the news of the extraordinary findings from spreading, local authorities built a museum secretly – at night.
The dissected findings, which include parts of a skull, vertebrae and leg bones, alongside a life-sized drawing of the dinosaur, will be put on display in the new museum.
Describing how the discovery was made, Marek Blyszcz, a local official, said: “It all started from minerals. When a collector came to Lipie Slaskie to look for pyrite two years ago he found the first bone.
“It was thought to be a cow’s bone. But, luckily, he contacted palaeontologists,” he added.