Post # 138
Desi dinosaurs!
Whenever I read the tagline from Steven Spielberg's movie Jurassic Park - "when Dinosaurs ruled the world", I wondered, did they also rule India? Or were these mega-predators only a western phenomenon?
Turns out, between 200 million years and 65 million years ago, more than 20 species of dinosaurs roamed across Meghalaya, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. It is believed that the largest and the last ever dinosaurs roamed in this part of the world.
Don't believe that? Read on. Because, therein lies a tale.
About 100 kms from Baroda (Vadodara) in Gujarat is an old, sleepy town called Balanisor. 10 km from there is a small village called Raiyoli. Once upon a time, an old woman used to live in Raiyoli. She had magical culinary skills. It was said of her, "Her curries would cure ailments, hypnotize officials, calm the angry and excite the unruffled."
Balanisor also hosted the estate of the former royal family of the 17th century Babi dynasty. The estate has now been converted into a 8-room hotel, managed by Princess Aliya Sultana Babi and her brother.
In October, 2003, young Princess Aliya was on her rounds in her estate, when she passed the old woman’s hut. An intoxicating aroma filled the air and enticed her inside. The princess found the old woman grinding spices with a odd looking mortar and pestle, then mixing them into a curry that was slowly cooking on an earthen stove. Princess Aliya borrowed the pestle from the old woman, studied it and found that it was a dinosaur egg!
In the early 1980s, palaeontologists stumbled upon dinosaur bones and fossils during a regular geological survey of this mineral-rich area. They found dinosaur egg hatcheries and fossils of at least 13 species of dinosaurs, more than 100 million years old. It is now believed that Gujarat is home to one of the largest clutch of dinosaur hatcheries in the world. So well-protected are the fossilised eggs found here that many researchers call them the best-preserved eggs in the world after the ones found in France.
Today Balanisor hosts India's first and only Dinosaur fossil park. It is also called India's Jurassic park. Gujarat tourism officials talk about Dinosaur Tourism and Princess Aaliya, also called the Dinosaur Princess, conducts guided tours of the fossil park.
I was not aware of all of this until I read an interesting book called Quirky History. It contains a chapter on Dinosaurs that are believed to have roamed in India. I checked them out on Google and Wikipedia, and found details about a few pretty interesting breeds.
The first one is named Titanosaurus indicus, the first Indian dinosaur to be discovered, in 1828, by William Henry Sleeman, an administrator with the East India Company, at the base of the Bara Simla Hill near Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. This is how the bugger looked.
Another one was called Barapasaurus Tagorei. Bara = Big, Pa = Feet. Almost 300 bones of at least six Barapasaurus were excavated from the present day town of Pochampalli, Telangana, in 1961. Interestingly, the species’ surname, Tagorei, was chosen because the first year of fieldwork on the site at Pochampalli was carried out in the centenary year of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth.
The next one is my favorite. I had a great time reading about it. I was almost ROFL. Its was called Jainosaurus. Quite like the Jains, this dinosaur was a herbivore. But that's not why it's called Jainosaurus. This dinosaur actually gets its name from the palaeontologist Sohan Lal Jain, who worked on figuring out the skull of this animal. Its fossils were also discovered near Jabalpur. The Jainosaurus is especially interesting because it is among the last dinosaur species to live on earth.
Some dinosaurs were named after the places where their fossils were discovered. For example, Jaklapallisaurus was discovered near Jaklapalli in Andhra Pradesh. You can easy guess where Jubbulpuria was found.
One was named Isisaurus, after the Indian Statistical Institute!
I swear guys, I am not making this up. Pls check it out on Google if you wish. :-)
The last one, for now, is Bruhathkayosaurus, from the Sanskrit Bruhath-kaya, which means huge-bodied. It is believed to be the largest dinosaur that ever lived. Its fossils were found in Tiruchirappalli district of Tamil Nadu.
You can check out some of the other species for yourselves - Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis, Rajasaurus, Kotasaurus etc.
I will sign off with a fun fact. In Balasinor, paleontologists have found fossilized remains of a snake that dined on dinosaur eggs. A 67 million-year-old snake skeleton was found in a dinosaur nest, wrapped around a baby dinosaur.
Next time I go to Ahmedabad or Baroda, I must take time out to visit the Dinosaur Fossil Park in Balasinor.
