JCB diggers excavating the site of the company’s new £30 million golf course have unearthed a prehistoric secret – the skeletal remains of a dinosaur. The stunning discovery was made last week but has only today been made public after archaeology experts were drafted in to examine the fossil near JCB’s World HQ in Rocester.
It has now been identified as a Digasaurus Rex, a meat eating dinosaur which roamed the earth 166 million years ago. Digasaurus Rex was about seven metres long, and weighed 1.1 tonnes and standing on its upright legs would have been nine metres high. It had an elongated head with long dagger-like teeth to slice the flesh of its prey.
The fossil has now been removed to a secret location but plans are already being made for it to go on permanent display at the former Woodseat Hall, which is set to be restored to its former glory and be transformed into the club house of the new golf course.
The perfectly preserved fossil was discovered as machine operator Tom Fraser, 24, of Cheadle, was carrying out excavations at the site with a JCB 3CX backhoe loader.
Tom said: “I was just pushing into a pile of earth when I spotted what looked like a bone. I kept gently scraping back the earth and gradually a giant skeleton began to emerge. I then carried on the excavations by hand and over the next three hours unearthed the Digasaurus Rex. I was staggered.”
A JCB spokesman said: “It’s very well documented that the Romans settled in Rocester nearly 2,000 years ago but this pre-historic discovery is quite simply something else. It is an amazing find which will doubtless become as world-famous as the JCB Backhoe Loader that dug it up.”