A “rare” discovery, the first in the chalk rocks of Normandy. In 2021 and 2023, Nicolas Cottard, an amateur paleontologist, found two parts of the skeleton of a new species of dinosaur, between Étretat and Le Havre, reports France BlueAccording to Eric Buffetaut, emeritus research director in paleontology at the CNRS, who studied the blocks, this Caletodraco cotardi is a distant cousin of the T-Rex which is thought to have lived 100 million years ago.
According to his observations, shared in the journal Fossil Studiesthis dinosaur was a terrestrial, carnivorous animal, six meters long, from the Furileusaur family, which means “stiff-backed lizards”. According to the research director, interviewed by local radio, this Furileusaur had a long tail and small arms, “like a Tyrannosaurus”. Unlike its cousin, the dinosaur discovered in Normandy lived in the South, in South America, Africa and Europe, while the T-Rex was rather in North America and Central Asia.
The Caletodraco cotardi could not have lived in Normandy
The specialist explains that the species found could not have lived in the region that was under water at that time. According to him, “the caletodraco fossil was formed in the mud at the bottom of the sea” which must have floated for kilometers and perhaps been “devoured by a prehistoric shark, before falling to the bottom of the water.”
Why Caletodraco cottardi? The name was given by Éric Buffetaut. “Caletodraco” for “dragon of the Calètes”, a Celtic tribe that inhabited the Pays de Caux in the 5th century BC. And “cottardi” in reference to Nicolas Cottard, the amateur paleontologist who discovered the skeleton.