GSI discovers 72mn-yr-old dinosaur teeth fossil in Meghalaya’s Mawphuli

Guwahati: A team of Geological Survey of India (GSI) has discovered two over 72-million-years-old dinosaur teeth fossils from Mawphuli village in South West Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya during the field season 2023-24. This is the first-ever discovery of dinosaur teeth-fossils in the northeastern part of India.
The fossils, belonging to the Titanosaurian Sauropod group of dinosaurs, were discovered from the sandstones of upper Cretaceous Mahadek formation of the Khasi group.Mahadek formation is a geologic formation in the country where dinosaur remains have been recovered.
“During the dıscovery, two poorly preserved teeth were recovered from the sandstones. Although the complete tooth wsas not preserved, based on the morphology, both teeth are comparable to those of Sauropods of Titanosaurous of late cretaceous age. Both the discovered specimens have similarities with Sauropod based on their size, shape and tooth morphology,” said a GSI press release.
An official of the GSI on Thursday told TOI, “Before this dinosaur teeth was not discovered in Meghalaya or any other part of the northeast. This is an added knowledge to the study of fossils. The earlier discoveries of dinosaur bones made it difficult to assert the species, which has been made easy by this discovery.”
“Besides, giving a better understanding about distribution and diversity of the dinosaurs in the late Cretaceous formations in the country, it has also helped fillil the gap in the stratigraphical record of the group of dinosaurs. GSI will be continuing with studies to extract more evidence about the presence of dinosaurs in the region,” the official added.
The bigger tooth discovered is yellowish in colour and 23 mm long and 20 mm wide. While, the smaller tooth is chocolate brown in colour at the crown and of-white at the base and is 16 mm long and lacks a well-developed root.
The first-ever presence of fragmentated vertebrate fossils were reported in Meghalaya in 1977.