Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Fossils in Hong Kong for the First Time #fossils #paleontology #dinosaurs #china #hongkong

An expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences collects fossil specimens on Port Island in the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark. The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Smithsonian Magazine brings news of the first discovery of dinosaur fossils in Hong Kong.  The fossils were identified as a “large, aged dinosaur”.  They were found on the tiny uninhabitied Port Island.  The animal lived during the Cretaceous Period.

China—along with Argentina, Canada and the United States—is one of the main geographical regions for identifying and studying dinosaur fossils. And Hong Kong is an important center for paleontological research, per Artnet’s Tim Brinkhof. So, it might come as a surprise that this latest dinosaur discovery is Hong Kong’s first—but such remains are rare, because the region’s environmental conditions were not optimal for fossilization.

“Hong Kong is famous for being a built-up landscape, but half of it is country park. In the countryside areas, most of what you see are dinosaur-era rocks, but it’s volcanic rocks—and they are bad places to find fossils, because fossils just melt,” Pittman tells the Guardian. “But Port Island is one of the islands that has dinosaur-age rocks of the right type and right environment.”