In a major discovery, a team of domestic and international experts has unearthed around 70 Jurrasic-era fossils from Sironcha in Gadchiroli district. The area, which forms part of the upper Gondwana Kota formations, is located in the basin of the Godavari and Pranhita rivers, and is perhaps the only site in India where both, faunal and floral fossil remains are found.

The fossils discovered on Wednesday are estimated to be around 150 to 160 million years old.

“We recovered around 70 dinosaur fossil bones including rib and neck parts, vertebrae, toe piece and a fish fossil,” said Tushar Chavan, deputy conservator of forests, Sironcha.

Dhananjay Mohabe, retired deputy director general, Geological Survey of India (GSI), said the finds indicated that apart from Jurrasic-era Kotasaurus and Barapasaurus dinosaurs, there was possibly a third new type of sauropod dinosaur in the habitat during this period. Mohabe was part of the team with Jeffrey Wilson from the University of Michigan and Gregory Wilson, University of Washington.

Incidentally, the only two complete dinosaur skeletons mounted for display in India were recovered from the Pranhita- Godavari valley landscape, noted Mohabe. This includes a Sauropod (Barapasaurus tagorei) skeleton from the Pochampalli village (1959) which is displayed at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Another sauropod (Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis) was unearthed at nearby Yamanpalli in Telangana in the 1990s and is at Birla Science Museum in Hyderabad.

The landscape has exposed Jurassic-era fossil remains including flora (tree logs and leaves) and fauna (reptiles including Kotasaurus and Barapasaurus dinosaur and fishes).

D.K Kapgate, retired professor of paleobotany, who was part of the team, said scientific excavations may reveal more intact skeletons. Kapgate said unlike other Indian sites with Jurrasic-era remains like Anjar in Gujarat (dinosaur fossils) and Mandla in Madhya Pradesh (plant fossils), the Sironcha site was diverse with a variety of fossils, namely wood, mammals, reptile, fish, crocodiles and plants.

Nusrat Babar Shaikh from the C.V Raman science college at Sironcha, who has conducted research on these fossils, said the discoveries would help scientists understand the Jurrasic-era habitat and climate in the region.

“Though plant fossils have been found in the Nagpur- Chhindwara belt, they are from an uppermost cretaceous period, namely 40 to 60 million years, compared to these recoveries from the Jurrasic-era,” Kapgate explained.

The Maharashtra forest department is developing the ‘Wadadham Fossil Wood Park’ at Sironcha with replicas of dinosaurs and exhibits of their bones and plant fossils. It is located at a distance of around 400km from Nagpur.