Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Fossils in Hong Kong for the First Time

Paleontologists have made the first discovery of dinosaur fossils in Hong Kong, found within red sedimentary rocks on the tiny, uninhabited Port Island (also called Chek Chau, meaning “red island”) northeast of the metropolis. The historic finding, which was made in Hong Kong’s UNESCO Global Geopark, was announced in a statement from the Hong Kong government last week.

“The discovery is of great significance and provides new evidence for research on paleoecology in Hong Kong,” Bernadette Linn, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Development, says in the statement.

Based on a preliminary analysis, experts identified the fossils as bone remains of a “large, aged dinosaur” dating to the Cretaceous Period, about 145 million to 66 million years ago. They don’t know yet what species it belonged to, but they hypothesize its remains were buried in sand and gravel, resurfaced due to a flood and were reburied, per the Guardian’s Helen Davidson.

“This extremely exciting discovery now adds local dinosaur fossils to Hong Kong’s strong existing track record of dinosaur research,” Michael Pittman, a dinosaur paleobiologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, tells Reuters. “I hope it inspires greater interest in science and nature in our community and will lead to notable scientific outcomes.”

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.”

In March of this year, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department in Hong Kong alerted authorities that Port Island might contain dinosaur fossils. When experts were dispatched to the island to investigate the claim, they confirmed what researchers had been hoping for, unearthing the historic bones.

Up until now, the only “dinosaur-era things” identified in Hong Kong were plants and fish, Pittman tells CNN’s Karina Tsui. He adds that skeletal remains as a whole are rare across southern China, a region that is instead known for discoveries of dinosaur eggs.

“It’s shocking, because I never thought there would be dinosaur fossils in Hong Kong,” Chong Got, who was one of the first to see the fossils at Hong Kong’s Heritage Discovery Center, tells Reuters. The new finds have been on display at the museum since Friday.

The Hong Kong government has now closed Port Island indefinitely to allow for further excavations, per the statement, with the hopes of making more discoveries.

“If they end up finding a whole skeleton of a big dinosaur or two dinosaurs, they might have to go back next summer, and the summer after that,” Pittman says to CNN.

Margherita Bassi | READ MORE

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.