Boy Finds Eight-Million-Year-old Giant Reptile Fossil in Brazil’s Acre State

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Eleven-year-old Robson Cavalcante was surprised to find a fossil of a prehistoric reptile buried on the banks of the Acre River in the municipality of Brasiléia, a town in the state of Acre on the border with Bolivia. To G1 news site, he says he thought it was a dinosaur.

“I was fishing with my dad, so I stepped on something different and called him. My father dug it up, and I thought it was a dinosaur,” said the boy.

They found the fossil on Thursday, July 11th, and a paleontologist from the Federal University of Acre (UFAC) has been on site since Tuesday, July 16th, to perform the excavation.

The child’s father, carpenter José Militão, 58, recalls that the following day he returned to the area to dig even deeper and was impressed. “I used a hoe and a pickaxe, and I found out it was a fossil. I did it very carefully so as not to damage it,” said the carpenter.

Soon the find was know throughout the city of Brasiléia. Paleontologist Jonas Filho heard about it and went to the site to perform the cautious task of extracting the bone without breaking it.

According to the researcher, the fragment found is a jawbone, part of the skull of a Purussaurus – a prehistoric reptile — that lived more than eight million years ago in the rivers and marshes of the Amazon forest and was over 12 meters in length.

“It’s a Purussaurus caiman, one of the largest that ever existed in the Amazon, about eight million years ago. It is a complete jawbone; in this case, it can even be considered a unique piece, as sometimes you find them, but they are detached. Apparently, besides the jaw, there’s a skull that’s paratially exposed. So this has relevance for science and museums as well, it is public heritage,” said the paleontologist.

The researcher praised the carpenter, who excavated with great care and did not damage the fossil.

Regarding the fact that a child found the fossil, the paleontologist said that the boy has a clinical eye and deserves top marks in science at school.